Question

Critical: CF page inserting email newsletter signups multiple times

Asked by: geraldw

Hello,

We're running CFMX 6.1 on Win2003 Servers with Oracle 8.0.3 DB on UNIX. This is bad for me so I'm offering the maximum points.  

We have free projects available on our website in exchange for a consumer signing up for our email newsletter.  Somewhere along the way between say almost 2 years ago and just recently I made some kind of change that is allowing duplicate email names to be entered although the CFQUERY is supposed to check to see if the email_address is already in the database.  The weird thing is that I see the time of creation is so close together that it seems like the consumer couldn't have clicked the submit button that many times so quickly, for example:

EMAIL_NEWS_LIST_ID EMAIL_ADD            TO_CHAR(DATE
------------------ ---------------------------------------------  -----------
            150382 anonymous@yahoo.com      15:40:39 PM
            150383 anonymous@yahoo.com      15:40:40 PM
            150384 anonymous@yahoo.com      15:40:42 PM
            150385 anonymous@yahoo.com      15:40:41 PM
            150386 anonymous@yahoo.com      15:40:47 PM

When I just go to the page on my website and try to access the project by giving it my email address it does the right thing which is to check that I'm in the DB and since I am already there it does not add me again but just puts the cookie on my machine so that I can view the projects.

Here is my CF code.
<cfset date_created = CreateODBCDateTime(now())>

<!--- first check to see if the emailAdd from the form is in the DB --->
<cfif IsDefined("Form.emailAdd")>
      <cfset email_Add=Lcase(Form.emailAdd)>
            <cfquery datasource="#secondaryDS#" name="checkEmail">
                  select email_news_list_id, email_add
                  from            email_list
                  where            lower(email_add)=lower('#Form.emailAdd#')
            </cfquery>
</cfif>

<!--- if emailAdd is in DB set status to 1 and cflocate to page --->      
<cfif Form.emailAdd EQ checkEmail.email_add>
      <cfcookie name="inEmailList" value="Y" expires="never">
      <cflocation url="index.cfm?page=section/classroom/sewprojects/EraBonnet/eraBonnet.cfm">
<cfelse>
<!--- otherwise set emailStatus to 2 and add to DB, this will trigger proper message below --->
      <cfset emailStatus = 2>
      <cfset email_Add = "#Form.emailAdd#">
      <cftransaction>
            <cfquery name="addToEmailList" datasource="#secondaryDS#">
                  declare nk int;
                  
                  begin
                  
                  update next_key
                  set next_key = next_key + 1
                  where table_name = 'email_list';
                  
                  select next_key + 1 into nk
                  from next_key
                  where table_name = 'email_list';
                        
                  insert into email_list(
                        email_news_list_id,
                        email_add,
                        first_name,
                        last_name,
                        spanish_lang,
                        date_created,
                        promo_code
                  )
                  values(
                        nk,
                        '#Lcase(email_add)#',
                        '#first_name#',
                        '#last_name#',
                        '1',
                        #date_created#,
                        #promo_code#
                  );
                  end;
            </cfquery>
      </cftransaction>
      <cfcookie name="inEmailList" value="Y" expires="never">
      
      <!-- Run email reply -->
      <cfmail from="Newsletter@anonymous.com" to="#email_Add#" subject="Anonymous Co." server="#WEBMAIL_EMAIL_SERVER#">
Hello #email_Add#

Welcome to our newsletter.

      </cfmail>
      
<cflocation url="index.cfm?page=section/classroom/sewprojects/EraBonnet/eraBonnet.cfm" addtoken="no">
</cfif>
_______________________
Many thanks in advance,
Jerry

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Asked On
2006-09-26 at 12:10:10ID22003525
Tags

cfmail

,

cfcookie

,

cflocation

,

emails

,

newsletter

Topic

ColdFusion Application Server

Participating Experts
1
Points
500
Comments
8

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Answers

 

by: shooksmPosted on 2006-09-26 at 12:32:06ID: 17604736

Sounds like someone hitting refresh on a slow loading page after submitting the form.

I would recomend putting control of the duplicates into the hands of your database by removing the email_news_list_id column and making the email_add column your primary key.  That way, it is physically impossible to insert duplicate emails.  You code would also get a lot smaller and you don't have to have two trips to the database to accomplish.

<cfset date_created = CreateODBCDateTime(now())>
<cfset emailStatus = 2>
<cfset email_Add = "#Form.emailAdd#">

<cftry>
     <cftransaction>
          <cfquery name="addToEmailList" datasource="#secondaryDS#">
               insert into email_list(
                    email_add,
                    first_name,
                    last_name,
                    spanish_lang,
                    date_created,
                    promo_code
               )
               values(
                    '#Lcase(email_add)#',
                    '#first_name#',
                    '#last_name#',
                    '1',
                    #date_created#,
                    #promo_code#
               );
          </cfquery>
     </cftransaction>
     <!--- there is probably a more specific error to trap for duplicates then using type="any". try dumping out CFERROR when entering a duplicate to see it --->
     <cfcatch type="any">
          <!--- looks like there was an error inserting the data, set their cookie and send them away --->
          <cfcookie name="inEmailList" value="Y" expires="never">
          <cflocation url="index.cfm?page=section/classroom/sewprojects/EraBonnet/eraBonnet.cfm">
     </cfcatch>
</cftry>
<!--- if I got this far, there was no problems inserting the email so send them a success message and redirect --->
<cfcookie name="inEmailList" value="Y" expires="never">
<!-- Run email reply -->
<cfmail from="Newsletter@anonymous.com" to="#email_Add#" subject="Anonymous Co." server="#WEBMAIL_EMAIL_SERVER#">
Hello #email_Add#

Welcome to our newsletter.

</cfmail>
<cflocation url="index.cfm?page=section/classroom/sewprojects/EraBonnet/eraBonnet.cfm" addtoken="no">

 

by: geraldwPosted on 2006-09-26 at 13:14:19ID: 17605158

Shooksm,
Thanks, I see the point of your suggestion.  I have an newsletter sending application that needs to have the email_news_list_id as the Primary_Key in order to do it's job.  I guess I could make it a dual-column primary key.

I believe that I would have to remove all existing duplicates from the table in order to make the change which is going to be hard because I have an Oracle 8.0.3 DB that is on an old machine that starts to die whenever I run queries where it has to really work on the 110,000 rows of the database.  So, although it should be fairly easy to run a query that will will sub-select the duplicates out of the table into a new one, every time I've tried to do something like that before I ended up killing the query and rebooting the machine.

Let me study it a bit and then get back to you.
Thanks, Jerry

 

by: geraldwPosted on 2006-09-26 at 13:17:51ID: 17605188

A follow-up note:

If I look in the Enterprise Manager Console I see that I have a constraint called PK_EMAIL_LIST_ID
and it is a dual-column constraint:

EMAIL_NEWS_LIST_ID
EMAIL_ADD

I see no indications of being disabled, initially deferred, or any of the other options available in regard to Constraints so I'm a little perplexed why this would be happening?

Jerry

 

by: shooksmPosted on 2006-09-26 at 15:22:39ID: 17606068

Because it is a compound primary key the EMAIL_ADD column alone is not treated as a duplicate.  The combination of EMAIL_NEWS_LIST_ID and EMAIL_ADD are required to cause a primary key violation. So given the following data:

    EMAIL_NEWS_LIST_ID, EMAIL_ADD
    -----------------------------------------
    1, 'email@email.com'
    2, 'email@gmail.com'

The following will work:

    INSERT INTO email_list (email_news_list_id, email_add) values (3, 'email@email.com')

Because a primary key of 3 and 'email@email.com' does not exist, but this this will fail:

    INSERT INTO email_list (email_news_list_id, email_add) values (1, 'email@email.com')

Because a primary key of 1 and 'email@email.com' already exists.


If you were to remove the duplicate emails, you could take EMAIL_NEWS_LIST_ID column out of the primary key and keep it to just the EMAIL_ADD column.  If you are using the ID column for a foreign key relationship, you could always put an index just on that column once it is out of the primary key.  My oracle knowledge is a little limited but does Oracle allow for a unique contraint on a column that is not part of a primary key?

 

by: geraldwPosted on 2006-09-27 at 08:28:26ID: 17611154

I see the logic of the solution but I feel like it's more important to try and figure out how and why this is happening.  If I go into the base table (email_list) and start to change things I could cause myself big headaches because the newsletter gets sent out twice a week and I am responsible for that as well.  If I start changing the DB to a point where it causes the newsletter send to be held up I have to pay a price.

Isn't there some way that I can stop this from happening via the ColdFusion code?

Thanks, Jerry

 

by: shooksmPosted on 2006-09-27 at 08:45:20ID: 17611290

Try this instead in your CF:

<cfset date_created = CreateODBCDateTime(now())>

<!--- first check to see if the emailAdd from the form is in the DB --->
<cfif IsDefined("Form.emailAdd")>
     <cfset email_Add=Lcase(Form.emailAdd)>
          <cfquery datasource="#secondaryDS#" name="checkEmail">
               select email_news_list_id, email_add
               from          email_list
               where          lower(email_add)=lower('#Form.emailAdd#')
          </cfquery>
          <!--- Check to see if the query returned anything --->
          <cfif checkEmail.RecordCount GT 0>
               <cfcookie name="inEmailList" value="Y" expires="never">
               <cflocation url="index.cfm?page=section/classroom/sewprojects/EraBonnet/eraBonnet.cfm">
          </cfif>
</cfif>

 

by: geraldwPosted on 2006-09-27 at 10:51:25ID: 17612363

shooksm,
I'm giving your suggestion a try.  I'll try it and let it sit overnight and see what I get.
Thanks, Jerry

 

by: geraldwPosted on 2006-10-27 at 11:01:17ID: 17821109

Hello,

Sorry for the delay.  We have a big project that drew me away from this.

I tried the idea you posted on 9/27/2006 and it didn't seem to help. I think I'm really missing a CFIF statement that will straighten things out.

I'm trying something with CFLOCK right now that appears to be helping.  Unfortunately, we're not running MX7 so I don't have the "submitOnce" option.

I'd like to award 200 points for sticking with me and being so helpful.

Regards, Jerry

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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