Stockroom
Coast & Decks built their catalog filter in 2011 and never revisited it. The point-of-sale credentials sit in the same database.
The Scenario
Coast & Decks opened in Long Beach in 2011 with the shop website built
by a friend of the owner's brother, a weekend job to get the deck
catalog online before that season's first big restock. The catalog
filter was wired up that same weekend. The point-of-sale integration
needed somewhere to keep its rotating credentials, "the database" was
the only database the team owned, so that's where they went, alongside
the boards and the trucks and the wax.
Challenge Intel
Synopsis
Coast & Decks' shape filter is concatenated. Use MySQL information_schema to enumerate tables and columns, then pivot a UNION to read a vault_codes row containing the point-of-sale API token.
What It Is
Coast & Decks runs a small online skateboard catalog. The /decks endpoint filters by board shape via a URL parameter, the parameter is spliced directly into an 8-column SELECT. The vault_codes table, used by the point-of-sale system to store rotating credentials, sits in the same database. The teaching focus here is the MySQL information_schema enumeration sequence: list tables with information_schema.tables, list columns with information_schema.columns, then pivot the UNION to extract from the target table.
Who It's For
Players who know the UNION pattern and need practice with MySQL information_schema enumeration (vs sqlite_master).
Skills You'll Practice
- Identifying MySQL backend via error syntax
- ORDER BY column-count probing
- information_schema.tables enumeration (WHERE table_schema=DATABASE())
- information_schema.columns enumeration
- Cross-table UNION extraction
What You'll Gain
- MySQL metadata-enumeration muscle memory
- Comfort with the table→column→data progression