Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Warning Letters Part II

FDA provides a web-page where you can Search Warning Letters by Issue Date and Export to Excel. Previously, I wrote about how the output of this information is not actually Excel, but here's something cute.

When you actually select a range of dates and download the "Excel" file, you get a file named something like this:

fda_wl_search_results_06302009110030.xls
the digit "code" at the end of the filename isn't that difficult to crack

fda_w[arning]l[etters]_search_results_MONTH DAYYEARHOURMINUTESECOND.xls

But what happens when 2 people request results within the same second? This will probably never happen, but it's a bad idea to dynamically name files like this.

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