prguidelines attribute in Task object consists of values exceeding max. size of the column

Products

• Clarity PPM On Premise
• Clarity PPM SaaS

Issue/Introduction

We notice that Guidelines attribute (with ID prguidelines) in the Task object has a maximum size limit of 254 characters. However, when looking at the DB, it is visible that there are many tasks against which there are more than 254 characters. How is this possible?

The following query can be used to check if there are any Tasks with this condition against them.

SELECT
    prname,
    prprojectid,
    length(prguidelines)
FROM
    prtask
WHERE
    length(prguidelines) > 254
ORDER BY length(prguidelines) DESC;

Environment

Version: 15.9.0

Resolution

It appears that the only way this limit could have been breached is through a direct update against the prguidelines column in the prtask table. Since the underlying datatype of this column is varchar2 (762 bytes), it can accommodate more than 254 characters at the DB level. But there are business validations that prevent the application from inserting a value that is more that 254 characters long. So, it is most likely that a process or a third-party integration which touches the DB directly was responsible for this maximum limit breach.

It has been determined that the limit cannot be breached either through manual data entry in the UI, or through XOG, or even through REST API.