openfoodfacts/openfoodfacts-server

Empty search produces weird download

Open

#9,312 opened on Nov 13, 2023

View on GitHub
 (7 comments) (0 reactions) (0 assignees)Perl (236 forks)batch import
good first issue🔎 Search

Repository metrics

Stars
 (477 stars)
PR merge metrics
 (Avg merge 15d 21h) (157 merged PRs in 30d)

Description

What

When search.pl doesn't find any products, the CSV and XLSX are weird. Basically, HTTP response seems to contain some header for the resulting format, and the search result page that says "no results".

Steps to reproduce the behavior

  1. Go to https://world-de.openfoodfacts.org/cgi/search.pl?action=process&tagtype_0=brands&tag_contains_0=does_not_contain&tag_0=M%C3%BCller&tagtype_1=brands&tag_contains_1=contains&tag_1=Muller&sort_by=unique_scans_n&page_size=20 to search for products that have the brand "Muller" but not the brand "Müller"
  2. Notice that there are no results aside: Notice that pagination is presented, and one counter says there are 44 products, while another one shows 0 products.
  3. Download the search results in XLSX and CSV format
  4. Open the downloaded files in a text editor.

Expected behavior

An empty CSV/XLSX file should be provided for download.

Why

The downloads are provided with content-disposition: attachment;filename=openfoodfacts_export.xlsx or content-disposition: attachment;filename=openfoodfacts_export.csv headers. Users trying to open the files could get confused.

Contributor guide

Research direction
Inspect the search.pl script to understand how CSV and XLSX downloads are generated when no results are found. Trace the response handling to ensure an empty file is served instead of mixed content.
Tech stack
perl
Domain
backendapi
Issue type
Bug
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
2
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
1-3 hours
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
Active
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
Clear
Prerequisites
GitPerl
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
70