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+-   $23,148,855,308,184,500.00 a bit much on Wednesday July 15, @03:36PM Hmmm2000

Submitted by Hmmm2000 on Wednesday July 15, @03:36PM
programming
Hmmm2000 writes "Recently several Visa card holders were, um, overcharged for certain purchases, to the tune of $23,148,855,308,184,500.00 on a single charge.

The company says it was due to a programming error, and that the problem has been corrected. What is interesting, is that the amount charged actually reveals the type of programming error that caused the problem.

23,148,855,308,184,500.00 * 100 (I'm guessing this is how the number is actually stored) is 2314885530818450000.

Convert 2314885530818450000 to hexidecimal, and you end up with 20 20 20 20 20 20 12 50.

Most C/C++ programmers see the error now .. hex 20 is a space. So spaces were stuffed into a field where binary zero should have been."
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