GNU bug report logs - #52670
legacy base64 encoding of latin-1

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From: help-debbugs <at> gnu.org (GNU bug Tracking System)
To: mattiase <at> acm.org
Subject: bug#52670: closed (Re: bug#52670: [PATCH] legacy base64 encoding
 of latin-1)
Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2021 19:25:03 +0000

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Your bug report

#52670: legacy base64 encoding of latin-1

which was filed against the emacs package, has been closed.

The explanation is attached below, along with your original report.
If you require more details, please reply to 52670 <at> debbugs.gnu.org.

-- 
52670: http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=52670
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Contact help-debbugs <at> gnu.org with problems

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From: Mattias Engdegård <mattiase <at> acm.org>
To: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 52670-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#52670: [PATCH] legacy base64 encoding of latin-1
Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2021 20:24:21 +0100

20 dec. 2021 kl. 20:10 skrev Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>:

> Thanks, but this should at the very least be announced as an
> incompatible Lisp change in NEWS.

Right, I added a detailed notice. Thanks for taking a look!

Pushed; closing.

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From: mattiase <at> acm.org
To: bug-gnu-emacs <at> gnu.org
Subject: legacy base64 encoding of latin-1
Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2021 22:47:15 +0100

For what appears to be historical reasons, the base64 encoding functions (base64-encode-string etc) treat characters in the range U+0080..U+00FF as if they were raw bytes in the 127..255 range. This means that

  (base64-encode-string "ÿ")

and

  (base64-encode-string "\xff")

return the same result although the strings are completely different. Attempts to encode other multibyte characters fail (correctly). For example,

  (base64-encode-string "Ÿ")

signals an error, as expected.

I propose we tighten up the behavior by eliminating the legacy handling of characters in the  U+0080..U+00FF range. Letting the bug stay in place enables incorrect, brittle and error-prone usage: the functions are clearly intended to be fed encoded text only and should signal an error when not, as stated in the manual.

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