The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2026-05-27 Reply Admin

I wonder if this was originally some kind of check to limit the number of attachments - between 1 and 10 is fine, any more then do something else - but the requirement was changed and this is the remnants that are left 'just in case' the requirements come back.

Steve_The_Cynic · 2026-05-27 Reply Edit Admin

but the requirement was changed and this is the remnants that are left 'just in case' the requirements come back

More likely it was one of those "make the minimum changes possible" situations, as in the case below:

if ( there are entries in the array )
{
    // do some stuff that might remove no entries, some entries, or all entries
     ...

    if ( there are (still) entries in the array )
    {
        // do some other stuff that might output a supplementary line of text if there are entries
        ...

        foreach ( $files as $file )
        {
             // addAttachment stuff
        }
    }
}

And then the requirement for removing no/some/all entries disappeared, and then the requirement for the other stuff disappeared, so only the if()s remain outside the foreach(). (Removing the if()s would count as making more changes than the minimum possible, so they remain with us.)

2026-05-27 Reply Admin

This screams "git merge error" to me.

2026-05-27

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