Got Your Number

Remy Porter

Computers were a mistake, which is why I'm trying to shoot them into space. Editor-in-Chief for TDWTF.

You have a string. It contains numbers. You want to turn those numbers into all “0”s, presumably to anonymize them. You’re also an utter incompetent. What do you do?

You already know what they do. Jane’s co-worker encountered this solution, and she tells us that the language was “Visual BASIC, Profanity”.

Private Function ReplaceNumbersWithZeros(ByVal strText As String) As String
     ReplaceNumbersWithZeros = Replace(Replace(Replace(Replace(Replace(Replace(Replace(Replace(Replace(strText, "1", "0"), "2", "0"), "3", "0"), "4", "0"), "5", "0"), "6", "0"), "7", "0"), "8", "0"), "9", "0")
End Function

Jane adds:

My co-worker found this function while researching some legacy code. Shortly after this discovery, it took us 15 minutes to talk him down off the ledge…and we’re on the ground floor.

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