GNU bug report logs - #79184
base32/base64: different behavior of -d with invalid input

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Message #5 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Daniel Hofstetter <dhofstet <at> gmail.com>
To: bug-coreutils <at> gnu.org
Subject: base32/base64: different behavior of -d with invalid input
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2025 18:04:30 +0200

Hi,

I noticed some inconsistency in how base32 and base64 handle invalid
input when decoding.

base32 simply shows an error on stderr whereas base64 shows an error
on stderr plus some output on stdout.

$ echo 'invalid' | base32 -d 2> /dev/null
$ echo 'invalid' | base32 -d > /dev/null
base32: invalid input
$ echo 'invalid' | base64 -d 2> /dev/null
�{ږ'$
$ echo 'invalid' | base64 -d > /dev/null
base64: invalid input

I'm using coreutils 9.7.

Regards,
Daniel

Message #8 received at 79184 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>
To: Daniel Hofstetter <dhofstet <at> gmail.com>
Cc: 79184 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#79184: base32/base64: different behavior of -d with invalid
 input
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2025 10:17:32 -0700

On 2025-08-06 09:04, Daniel Hofstetter wrote:
> $ echo 'invalid' | base32 -d 2> /dev/null
> $ echo 'invalid' | base32 -d > /dev/null
> base32: invalid input
> $ echo 'invalid' | base64 -d 2> /dev/null
> �{ږ'$
> $ echo 'invalid' | base64 -d > /dev/null
> base64: invalid input

I don't see a bug here. Both programs convert as much as they can, and 
then stop and diagnose a failure if there is one. base32 can't convert 
anything, so it stops right away. base64 can convert the 'inva' as 
that's valid base64 input, so it outputs the converted data before 
finding the "lid\n" which is invalid.

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