Our Spanish team tipped us off about a really bizarre push notification observed by Spanish Trainers. The push notification was observed only on iOS and looks like this:
The notification says the following: push test via csv w/ idfv file has crlf and believe it or not, it actually makes sense. Let’s break it down.
- push test is self explanatory and it denotes that this test notification is intended to be send over using push mechanism.
- csv is a file format that stands for comma separated values. A CSV which allows data to be saved in a table structured format and easily queried by developers.
- w/ means with in online jargon.
- idfv is an acronym for Apple’s identifierForVendor which in turn is an alphanumeric string that uniquely identifies a device to the app’s vendor.
- file has crlf simply denotes that the CSV file has two special characters: CR and LF. CR and LF are control characters or bytecode that can be used to mark a line break in a text file. CR stands for Carriage Return and LF stands for Line Feed.
In human lingo, the notification says something along these lines:
“We’re testing push notifications that use / are read from, a comma separated file and use Apple’s identifier for vendor mechanism. The CSV file we’re using is formatted with line breaks.”
Although bizarre and sinister looking, the notification is harmless and obviously a product of accidental button presses at Niantic HQ.
As far as the used technology goes, Niantic is using more or less standard mechanisms of queuing notifications and sending them down the wire.
We’re quite happy to see that they’re actively testing and working on the notification system. You know how the old saying goes: one notification a day, keeps player inactivity away!
Huge shout out goes out to our Spanish team – Pokemon GO Hub ES, you rock!
