HW URL text files that are rejected by the autograder

[bill-auger]

NOTE TO STUDENTS:

if you have submitted a text file that produces "socket error" or the spinner just keeps spinning

firstly - the file MUST be ASCII encoded if you do not know what this means then please create your text file in cloud9 exactly as directed in the assignment using the echo command

next - visit the address you have in your text file in your web browser to be sure that your app is running correctly at that address

next - if that is working - note that the assignment specifies the URL of a specific form - the URL in the text file should contain neither http:// nor https:// - it should look like this:

myapp.herokuapp.com

if after that you still are getting a fatal error from the autograder or if the spinner keeps spinning longer than 10 minutes please drag and drop that file to a comment here so we can debug against it

---

NOTE TO ADMIN:

• this file contains 'https'and throws the socket error TEXT_FILE_HIDDEN

• this file is UTF16 and causes the grader to hang indefinitely TEXT_FILE_HIDDEN

• this file is UTF8 and contain this text: '–n “myapp.herokuapp.com”' but curiously unlike the others this does not make the grader choke but completes successfully with 0/80 grade but her grade would have been 75/80 TEXT_FILE_HIDDEN

edit this post to get the files

perhaps a grader regex like http://rubular.com/r/NiHjcUCHIs

[edxdebugging3]

TEXT_FILE_HIDDEN

socket error

[tansaku]

thanks @bill-auger - this would be a great issue to get sorted ...

[peeyushjh]

TEXT_FILE_HIDDEN

the spinner just keeps spinning

[bill-auger]

@peeyushjh

your file is loaded with some crazy unicode - which program did you use to create that file?

in the terminal it looks like this:

$ cat Hw_2_Sinatra_Hangperson.txt
��myapp.herokuapp.com

in nano that file looks like this:

$ nano Hw_2_Sinatra_Hangperson.txt
 ��m^@y^@a^@p^@p^@.^@h^@e^@r^@o^@k^@u^@a^@p^@p^@.^$

[RobertStroud]

@peeyushjh @bill-auger - the file appears to be UTF-16, little endian...

$ file Hw_2_Sinatra_Hangperson.txt 
Hw_2_Sinatra_Hangperson.txt: Little-endian UTF-16 Unicode text, with no line terminators

[RobertStroud]

NOTE: TO ADMINS:

Like many other people, I had trouble submitting HW2. I think the instructions are misleading and the submission method is fragile

• My first attempt had trailing white space - text files should always terminate with a newline
• My second attempt include "https:" and the trailing slash (it was a URL)
• My third attempt worked - it was just the host name for the Heroku server

By definition, a URL must always begin with a "scheme:" prefix - hence "foo.herokuapp.com" is not a URL. In other words, the instructions are technically incorrect, even though they tell you what to do.

Moreover, the autograder should be more robust and forgiving about the input it accepts - ideally, it should accept either a hostname or a URL and not be fussy about whitespace. Alternatively, it should give a sensible error message if it isn't given exactly what it needs.

Similarly, it shouldn't hang if the input is encoded in UTF-16 rather than ASCII.

Why do we need to submit a text file at all? Why not simply paste a URL into a text box?

Thanks.

[bill-auger]

@RobertStroud

i do agree with you that there should be a more forgiving regex - unfortunately this was somewhat of a counter-example - namely because he was clearly not using the recommended environment for the course - the submission courseware page clearly says to create this file with echo

[tatyana12]

TEXT_FILE_HIDDEN

Score: 0/80

[tansaku]

@RobertStroud yeah - I wish we had a textbox only submission - it should be possible in principle, but something about the autograder submission assumes that a file is being submitted.

I did spend a couple of days trying to create an edX form in 2015 that would allow submission directly to the grader, but failed :-(

Maybe time to try it again ...