A while back I created a licensing system for my companies new product, as well as all products after this one. As with a lot of licensing systems mine generates codes: 25 character product and registration codes, as well as 16 character module unlocking codes. My question is, since some parts of these generated codes are random should I apply a language filter to it to avoid any embarrassing language being given to the end users?I chose to as it was not difficult at all.But has anyone else ever came across something like this? Any viewpoints as to if it is worth the effort?
Should you apply a language filter to a randomly generated string?
licensing
It depends (as always).Assuming that your string can produce runs of 4 or more alphabetical characters then such words will turn up from time to time.So:Will your users notice?Will they get upset enough to contact the company?Will this cause financial problems - loss of sales etc.?If the answers are yes then you should sanitise your strings.However - if you decide to do this you should really check for embarrassing language in other languages - French, German, Polish, Swahili.... Where do you draw the line?It might be simpler to either not bother or change your licensing system so that it only uses hexadecimal codes (say) or generates the code in blocks of 4 characters split by dashes with a rule that each block should contain a number.