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Fix Base64 madness for good

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Sven Van Caekenberghe-2

Fix Base64 madness for good

Hi,

I propose the following:

https://pharo.manuscript.com/f/cases/21870/Fix-Base64-madness-for-good
https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/1331

This is a much needed cleanup, IMHO. It is a breaking change however, since it changes the signature (return type) of an existing method.

#base64Decoded used to wrongly return a String, while that should be a ByteArray since Base64 encoding is a way to encode bytes as ASCII text, hence decoding it should give you back the original bytes.

Sven

Esteban A. Maringolo

Re: Fix Base64 madness for good

10/05/2018 16:42, Sven Van Caekenberghe wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I propose the following:
>
> https://pharo.manuscript.com/f/cases/21870/Fix-Base64-madness-for-good
> https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/1331
>
> This is a much needed cleanup, IMHO. It is a breaking change however, since it changes the signature (return type) of an existing method.
>
> #base64Decoded used to wrongly return a String, while that should be a ByteArray since Base64 encoding is a way to encode bytes as ASCII text, hence decoding it should give you back the original bytes.

Those who were using these methods expecting a string can send #asString
to the returned bytarray. Of course that would be wrong, but it would be
"as wrong as before", and hence, compatible.

So please go ahead and change it. Also, having a "proper" implementation
in a live environment serves a teaching vehicle for those learning how
stuff works.

Regards,

--
Esteban A. Maringolo

NorbertHartl

Re: Fix Base64 madness for good

In reply to this post by Sven Van Caekenberghe-2

> Am 10.05.2018 um 21:42 schrieb Sven Van Caekenberghe <[hidden email]>:
>
> Hi,
>
> I propose the following:
>
> https://pharo.manuscript.com/f/cases/21870/Fix-Base64-madness-for-good
> https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/1331
>
> This is a much needed cleanup, IMHO. It is a breaking change however, since it changes the signature (return type) of an existing method.
>
> #base64Decoded used to wrongly return a String, while that should be a ByteArray since Base64 encoding is a way to encode bytes as ASCII text, hence decoding it should give you back the original bytes.
>

Please do. It is obviously the right move. The times where strings contained bytes and it makes sense is over for a long time.

Norbert

Guillermo Polito

Re: Fix Base64 madness for good

YESS!

On Thu, May 10, 2018 at 10:33 PM, Norbert Hartl <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Am 10.05.2018 um 21:42 schrieb Sven Van Caekenberghe <[hidden email]>:
>
> Hi,
>
> I propose the following:
>
> https://pharo.manuscript.com/f/cases/21870/Fix-Base64-madness-for-good
> https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/1331
>
> This is a much needed cleanup, IMHO. It is a breaking change however, since it changes the signature (return type) of an existing method.
>
> #base64Decoded used to wrongly return a String, while that should be a ByteArray since Base64 encoding is a way to encode bytes as ASCII text, hence decoding it should give you back the original bytes.
>
Please do. It is obviously the right move. The times where strings contained bytes and it makes sense is over for a long time.

Norbert

Guille Polito

Research Engineer

Centre de Recherche en Informatique, Signal et Automatique de Lille

CRIStAL - UMR 9189

French National Center for Scientific Research - http://www.cnrs.fr

Web: http://guillep.github.io

Phone: +33 06 52 70 66 13