faq

What is W-Hat.com?

W-Hat.com provides a couple of useful services for LSL developers:

• name2key provides a way to get an avatar's key from their name.
• httpdb provides free key/value storage for scripts with no signup.
• lslint is a lint tool for LSL scripts

In the past, we also offered:

• objdns provided email aliases for objects.
• httpmail let objects send email to other objects via HTTP.

What happened to W-Hat?

The group became inactive and faded into obscurity as its members grew up. In 2011 the owner of the group and land was quietly banned from Second Life.

Some of us still hang out in #sl on irc.synirc.net, but almost nobody still plays Second Life.

Can I...

Yes, please do. Everything on this site is free and open source and all the services are free to use and abuse in any manner you see fit.

Who runs this site?

masa@w-hat.com

Where'd the postcards go?

Watch this space for a zip.

name2key

Look up keys

Enter as many names as you want, separated by anything other than spaces or periods.

Add keys to database

Paste keys in this box to add them to the database. Formatting and extraneous text don't matter; anything that doesn't look like a UUID will be ignored.

API

• GET /name2key/<name>

  Looks up a name. <name> may be in user.name or resident name format. If the name is found, returns status 200 and the UUID. If it is not found, returns status 404 and NULL_KEY.

  Examples

  Request		Response
  Method	URL	Status	Body
  GET	/name2key/Masakazu%20Kojima	200	a27b84f0-2757-4176-9579-43a181d4a5a0
  GET	/name2key/goVeRnoR.linDEN	200	3d6181b0-6a4b-97ef-18d8-722652995cf1
  GET	/name2key/a	404	00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
  GET	/name2key/username.a.a.a	400	Invalid name

• GET /name2key?names=<names>

  Looks up multiple names at once. <names> should be a list of up to 50 names in user.name or resident name format separated by anything that is unambiguous. Returns status 200 and a list of names exactly as input and corresponding UUIDs separated by newlines. If a key was not found the UUID will be NULL_KEY.

  Examples

  Request		Response
  Method	URL	Status	Body
  GET	/name2key?names=Masakazu%20Kojima,governor.linden,username,a	200	Masakazu Kojima a27b84f0-2757-4176-9579-43a181d4a5a0 governor.linden 3d6181b0-6a4b-97ef-18d8-722652995cf1 username 3223a4e4-01c6-44f8-9aa1-df790e02aa93 a 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
  GET	/name2key/?names=username.a.a.a	200	username.a 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 a.a 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000

• GET /key2name/<uuid>

  Look up a UUID. If found, returns 200 and the name in canonical user.name format. If not found, returns 404 and an empty string. Note this may attempt to resolve keys via world.secondlife.com and in-world search and may wait up to 60 seconds before returning a negative response.

  Examples

  Request		Response
  Method	URL	Status	Body
  GET	/key2name/a27b84f0-2757-4176-9579-43a181d4a5a0	200	masakazu.kojima
  GET	/key2name/3223a4e4-01c6-44f8-9aa1-df790e02aa93	200	username
  GET	/key2name/a27b84f0-2757-4176-9579-43a181d4a5a1	404
  GET	/key2name/a27b84f0-2757-4176-9579-43a181d4a5a	404	(undefined)

• POST /name2key

  Add keys to the database. The request body should contain one or more UUIDs separated by anything (or nothing). Keys will be queued up for resolution and an estimate of the number of new keys will be returned. Always returns status 200.

• GET|POST /name2key?keys=<keys> (DEPRECATED)

  Add keys to the database. <keys> should contain one or more UUIDs separated by anything (or nothing). Keys will be queued up for resolution and an estimate of the number of new keys will be returned. Always returns status 200. This API only exists to preserve compatibility with older scripts, and should not be used in new scripts.

• GET|POST /name2key?name=<name>[&terse=1] (DEPRECATED)

  Looks up a name in the database or SL search. Name may be in user.name or resident name format. If the name is found, returns status 200 and the UUID. If it is not found, returns status 200 and NULL_KEY. When terse=1 is not specified, result UUIDs will be prefixed by the name exactly the same as input, and the string "None found" will be returned instead of NULL_KEY. This API only exists to preserve compatibility with older scripts, and should not be used in new scripts.

  Examples

  Request		Response
  Method	URL	Status	Body
  GET	/name2key?name=Masakazu%20Kojima	200	Masakazu Kojima a27b84f0-2757-4176-9579-43a181d4a5a0
  GET	/name2key/?name=goVeRnoR.linDEN	200	goVeRnoR.linDEN 3d6181b0-6a4b-97ef-18d8-722652995cf1
  GET	/name2key/?name=goVeRnoR.linDEN&terse=1	200	3d6181b0-6a4b-97ef-18d8-722652995cf1
  POST	/name2key/?name=a	200	None found
  POST	/name2key/?name=a&terse=1	200	00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000

LSL example

string NAME  = "Masakazu Kojima";           // name to look up
string URL   = "http://w-hat.com/name2key"; // name2key url
key    reqid;                               // http request id

default {
    state_entry() {
        reqid = llHTTPRequest( URL + "/" + llEscapeURL(NAME), [], "" );
    }

    http_response(key id, integer status, list meta, string body) {
        if ( id != reqid )
            return;
        if ( status == 499 )
            llOwnerSay("name2key request timed out");
        else if ( status == 400 )
            llOwnerSay("Invalid name: " + NAME);
        else if ( status == 404 )
            llOwnerSay("No key found for " + NAME);
        else if ( status != 200 )
            llOwnerSay("the internet exploded!!");
        else
            llOwnerSay(NAME + "'s key is: " + body );
    }
}
		

I don't want my key listed!

There is no reason to worry about somebody else having your key. It is not a secret, it is just an identifier that LSL scripts use to interact with you.

Other databases

• HaxWorx name2key - Uses SL search as backup and crossfeeds into W-Hat database.
• KDC's database - Kyrah Abattoir's database. Has been around for a long time.

Name Formats

Since Second Life introduced usernames, the concept of what a name is has gotten complicated. The service understands four types of names:

• Resident Name (First Last)

  Resident Names are the original format. Everybody has a first and last name, separated by a space. Accounts created after the switch to usernames have the last name Resident. Examples: Masakazu Kojima, Governor Linden, Username Resident

• Username (First.Last)

  Usernames are the new format. The first and last name are separated by a period (.), and the last name is optional if it is "resident". "username.resident" and "username" are equivalent. Examples: Masakazu.Kojima, governor.linden, username.resident, username

• Canonical Username (first.last)

  Canonical usernames are what this database stores. They are the same as usernames, exept they are always lowercase, and anything that can be omitted is. "username.resident" is not a valid canonical name. Examples: masakazu.kojima, governor.linden, username

• Display Name

  A display name is freeform text that can be entered by a user and is displayed instead of their username. This is used in search results and profile pages. The actual account name is always appended in parentheses. Examples: Governor Linden (masakazu.kojima), Plastic Duck (username)

Nightly CSV

These files are updated daily at 08:00 UTC. Names are in Title Case resident name format, and the file is sorted by UUID.

• full bzip2 (~133MB)
• full rar (~145MB)
• full gzip (~161MB)
• full zip (~161MB)
• new only bzip2 (~326KB)

lslint

lint for LSL

lslint is a tool to check the syntactic and semantic validity of Second Life LSL scripts.

Source and downloads

Please see the github page.

Try online

Unfortunately, this feature is no longer available.

httpdb

Pardon the mess

API documentation and web interface for httpdb are currently unavailable. They will be restored as soon as possible.

Free storage for LSL scripts

httpdb provides free, persistent, off-site storage for Second Life LSL scripts via llHTTPRequest. You can store up to 250kb of data in the form of key/value pairs, and read or write the data from any script. You can share your data with other users, protect it with passwords, browse and manage your data on the web, and download backups.

Registration

There is no need to register to use httpdb, you can just start saving and retrieving data at any time.