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The Prime Minister announced last month that a mandatory system would be introduced so people can prove they have the right to work here - in an attempt to curb illegal migration.

'The Spice Girls made me accept who I am and what I am and how I look" they did that for me too,' Victoria declares in the opening scenes of the three part series.

This year's Times Higher Education (THE) league tables found that while some of our universities are still world-leading, there are 'clear warning signs of UK decline'.

Over the years Victoria has became synonymous for her steely pout, always failing to crack a smile at public events. Now the designer, 51, has addressed the reason why.

Carol sends us today's nasty bit of code. It does the thing you should never do: serializes by string munging.

public string ToJSON() { double unixTimestamp = ConvertToMillisecondsSinceEpoch(time); string JSONString = "{\"type\":\"" + type + "\",\"data\":{"; foreach (string key in dataDict.Keys) { string value = dataDict[key].ToString(); string valueJSONString; double valueNumber; bool valueBool; if (value.Length > 2 && value[0].Equals('(') && value[value.Length - 1].Equals(')')) //tuples { char[] charArray = value.ToCharArray(); charArray[0] = '['; charArray[charArray.Length - 1] = ']'; if (charArray[charArray.Length - 2].Equals(',')) charArray[charArray.Length - 2] = ' '; valueJSONString = new string(charArray); } else if ((value.Length > 1 && value[0].Equals('{') && value[value.Length - 1].Equals('}')) || (double.TryParse(value, out valueNumber))) //embedded json or numbers { valueJSONString = value; } else if (bool.TryParse(value, out valueBool)) //bools { valueJSONString = value.ToLower(); } else //everything else is a string { valueJSONString = "\"" + value + "\""; } JSONString = JSONString + "\"" + key + "\":" + valueJSONString + ","; } if (dataDict.Count > 0) JSONString = JSONString.Substring(0, JSONString.Length - 1); JSONString = JSONString + "},\"time\":" + unixTimestamp.ToString() + "}"; return JSONString; }

Now, it's worth noting, C# already has some pretty usable JSON serialization built-ins. None of this code needs to exist in the first place. It's parsing across a dictionary, but that dictionary is itself constructed by copying properties out of an object.

What's fun in this is because everything's shoved into the dictionary and then converted into strings (for the record, the dictionary stores objects, not strings) the only way they have for sniffing out the type of the input is to attempt to parse the input.

If it starts and ends with a (), we convert it into an array of characters. If it starts and ends with {} or parses as a double, we just shove it into the output. If it parses as a boolean, we convert it to lower case. Otherwise, we throw ""s around it and put that in the output. Notably, we don't do any further escaping on the string, which means strings containing " could do weird things in our output.

The final delight to this is the realization that their method of handling appending will include an extra comma at the end, which needs to be removed. Hence the if (dataDict.Count > 0) check at the end.

As always, if you find yourself writing code to generate code, stop. Don't do it. If you find you actually desperately need to start by building a syntax tree, and only then render it to text. If you find yourself needing to generate JSON specifically, please, I beg you, just get a library or use your language's built-ins.

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio has interrupted a summit held by Donald Trump to hand him an urgent note on the Gaza deal. The scrawled memo was caught on camera.

Kris Jenner has made a dramatic change to her appearance just days after her daughter Kim Kardashian stole her trademark hairstyle. 

Today is the Duke of Kent's 90th birthday - an occasion that will likely be marked by sadness following the death of his wife, Katharine, aged 92 last month.

The decorating shop was cordoned off as a man inside the store violently broke the glass and smeared luxury paint across the floors and counters.

IG has extended its free shares offer, but is it any good? You could get up to £200 worth of shares - but there's a catch that means the full value is reserved for a lucky few.

Any keen investor looking to get in early will have been disappointed to find that despite the ban lifting, these ETN products are still not available to retail investors.

A monarch butterfly with a critical wing injury was given a second chance to fly after New York rescuers performed an intricate transplant procedure.

The presenter put his name to a £400million Caribbean property scheme, appearing in videos that helped convince many victims to part with their life savings.

Larry Unrein and his partner Jeff Melvin narrowly escaped with their lives following the ordeal in Botswana.

The new courts will be also open to the public and community groups

A show which breathes life into stories both spooky and sweet is bringing weirdness and whimsey to Braintree.

There are a number of RSPCA branches in Essex, along with the affiliated Danaher Animal Home, with pets looking for forever homes.

There are a number of RSPCA branches in Essex, along with the affiliated Danaher Animal Home, with pets looking for forever homes.

The retailer said it was reducing the number of shops it had, naming one Essex location that would be axed

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: MEPs voted on Wednesday by 355 in favor to 247 against to reserve names such as "steak", "burger" and "sausage" exclusively for products derived from meat, a longstanding demand of farm unions. In order to come into effect, the idea would have to be approved by a majority of the EU's 27 member states, which is far from certain. The vote is a victory for the French centre-right MEP Celine Imart, who drafted the amendment to legislation intended to strengthen the position of farmers in the food supply chain. Imart, who is also a cereals farmer in north-west France, said: "A steak, an escalope or a sausage are products from our livestock, not laboratory art nor plant products. There is a need for transparency and clarity for the consumer and recognition for the work of our farmers." She argues the proposal is in line with EU rules that already ban the use of terms such as "milk" and "yoghurt" for non-dairy products. The European parliament rejected a ban on meaty names for plant-based products in 2020, but the 2024 elections shifted the parliament to the right, bringing in more lawmakers who seek close ties with farmers. Opposition was led by Green MEPs, who decried what they saw as a populist move to rename plant-based foods. "Veggie burgers, seitan schnitzel and tofu sausage do not confuse consumers, only rightwing politicians," Thomas Waitz, an Austrian Green MEP, said after the vote. "This tactic is a diversion and a pathetic smokescreen. No farmer will earn more money or secure their future with this ban."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.