From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Nic Ferrier Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: base64 behavior is not MIME compliant Date: Sun, 03 Jul 2005 22:09:16 +0100 Message-ID: <87slyv7g1v.fsf@kanga.tapsellferrier.co.uk> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1120426136 9842 80.91.229.2 (3 Jul 2005 21:28:56 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 3 Jul 2005 21:28:56 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Marc Horowitz , bugs@gnus.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Jul 03 23:28:52 2005 Return-path: Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DpC12-0006HA-0X for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 03 Jul 2005 23:28:40 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DpC2C-000737-HM for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 03 Jul 2005 17:29:52 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1DpC0o-0006J2-B6 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 03 Jul 2005 17:28:26 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1DpC0f-0006Ew-SZ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 03 Jul 2005 17:28:18 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DpC0e-00066B-7v for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 03 Jul 2005 17:28:16 -0400 Original-Received: from [80.168.156.78] (helo=owls-tree.tapsellferrier.co.uk) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (TLS-1.0:RSA_AES_128_CBC_SHA:16) (Exim 4.34) id 1DpBxA-0003Gc-MB; Sun, 03 Jul 2005 17:24:40 -0400 Original-Received: from [80.168.156.68] (helo=kanga) by owls-tree.tapsellferrier.co.uk with esmtp (Exim 4.50 #1 (Debian)) id 1DpBhS-0001Pa-S1; Sun, 03 Jul 2005 22:08:26 +0100 Original-Received: from nferrier by kanga with local (Exim 4.50) id 1DpBiH-0001tk-3a; Sun, 03 Jul 2005 22:09:17 +0100 Original-To: rms@gnu.org In-Reply-To: (Richard M. Stallman's message of "Sun, 03 Jul 2005 16:43:04 -0400") X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:40268 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:40268 "Richard M. Stallman" writes: > RFC 3548 has this to say about characters not part of the encoding > alphabet: > > Implementations MUST reject the encoding if it contains characters > outside the base alphabet when interpreting base encoded data, unless > the specification referring to this document explicitly states > otherwise. Such specifications may, as MIME does, instead state that > characters outside the base encoding alphabet should simply be ignored > when interpreting data ("be liberal in what you accept"). > > Words such as "must" claim an authority we do not recognize in the GNU > Project. We do not _obey_ standards--rather, we see what they have to > say, consider their recommendations, then do what seems best. > > I believe the best fix is for base64-decode-region to take an optional > argument which specifies how liberal it should be about it's input, > defaulting to the current behavior, and for Gnus to use this argument. > > To decide whether to do this, we need to know the answers to three questions: > > Is there some situation in which the current behavior of > base64-decode-region causes an actual problem or confusion for > users? I use base64-decode-region in my own email client written in elisp. I have *never* had a problem with it decoding a file so I couldn't read it. Nic