bug#54591: 29.0.50; sqlite-select returns blob result as multibyte string

bug#54591: 29.0.50; sqlite-select returns blob result as multibyte string

[Yuan Fu]

I’m trying make use of sqlite functionalities added recently and found
that the query result of blob type entries are multibyte string rather
than unibyte. That caused issues when I tried to create image out of the
query result: the image appears to be broken, even though the data is
good. Adding string-as-unibyte solves the issue, but I guess the
return value of a blob entry is probably best to be unibyte by default?

Yuan


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bug#54591: 29.0.50; sqlite-select returns blob result as multibyte string

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Yuan Fu <casouri@gmail.com>
> Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2022 22:49:21 -0700
> 
> 
> I’m trying make use of sqlite functionalities added recently and found
> that the query result of blob type entries are multibyte string rather
> than unibyte. That caused issues when I tried to create image out of the
> query result: the image appears to be broken, even though the data is
> good. Adding string-as-unibyte solves the issue, but I guess the
> return value of a blob entry is probably best to be unibyte by default?

If we want to support non-text data in a blob, then yes, I think you
are right.

bug#54591: 29.0.50; sqlite-select returns blob result as multibyte string

[Po Lu via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

> If we want to support non-text data in a blob, then yes, I think you
> are right.

BTW, I thought things can go awry quickly if misformed sequences find
their way into a multibyte string, so any data which isn't decoded or
guaranteed to be valid in Emacs's internal superset of Unicode shouldn't
be allowed to get into in a multibyte string.

Is that correct?

Thanks in advance.

bug#54591: 29.0.50; sqlite-select returns blob result as multibyte string

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Po Lu <luangruo@yahoo.com>
> Cc: Yuan Fu <casouri@gmail.com>,  54591@debbugs.gnu.org
> Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2022 20:04:41 +0800
> 
> Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
> 
> > If we want to support non-text data in a blob, then yes, I think you
> > are right.
> 
> BTW, I thought things can go awry quickly if misformed sequences find
> their way into a multibyte string, so any data which isn't decoded or
> guaranteed to be valid in Emacs's internal superset of Unicode shouldn't
> be allowed to get into in a multibyte string.
> 
> Is that correct?

No.  Emacs converts any invalid byte sequences to raw bytes, which
have a special internal representation that cannot harm us.

bug#54591: 29.0.50; sqlite-select returns blob result as multibyte string

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> I’m trying make use of sqlite functionalities added recently and found
>> that the query result of blob type entries are multibyte string rather
>> than unibyte. That caused issues when I tried to create image out of the
>> query result: the image appears to be broken, even though the data is
>> good. Adding string-as-unibyte solves the issue, but I guess the
>> return value of a blob entry is probably best to be unibyte by default?
>
> If we want to support non-text data in a blob, then yes, I think you
> are right.

I'm not sure there's any way to do that reliably.  If we change blob
selections to not decode, then if you have

create table if not exists test7 (col1 text, col2 blob)

and then

(format "insert into test7 values ('foó', '%s')" binary)

will have to encode the entire string in utf-8, meaning you get garbage
back when you select.  (While today you get encoded binary back.)

And if just say "well, don't do that, then; use prepared statements",
then

"insert into test7 values (?, ?)" ["foo" binary]

could work...  if we knew the type of the columns here, but I can't find
any way to determine that on a statement that has been executed yet
(sqlite3_column_type/sqlite3_column_decltype only seems to work on
selects; perhaps I'm missing something -- anybody know?)

We could then say "well, don't encode unibyte strings", but then we
might be inserting that, unencoded, into a text column, and we'd be
decoding when we get back, leading to more garbage.

Finally, we could introduce a new syntax, like:

"insert into test7 values (?, ?)" ["foo" (:binary binary)]

or something, but...  yuck.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

bug#54591: 29.0.50; sqlite-select returns blob result as multibyte string

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org>
> Cc: Yuan Fu <casouri@gmail.com>,  54591@debbugs.gnu.org
> Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2022 16:38:43 +0200
> 
> > If we want to support non-text data in a blob, then yes, I think you
> > are right.
> 
> I'm not sure there's any way to do that reliably.  If we change blob
> selections to not decode, then if you have
> 
> create table if not exists test7 (col1 text, col2 blob)
> 
> and then
> 
> (format "insert into test7 values ('foó', '%s')" binary)
> 
> will have to encode the entire string in utf-8, meaning you get garbage
> back when you select.  (While today you get encoded binary back.)
> 
> And if just say "well, don't do that, then; use prepared statements",
> then
> 
> "insert into test7 values (?, ?)" ["foo" binary]
> 
> could work...  if we knew the type of the columns here, but I can't find
> any way to determine that on a statement that has been executed yet
> (sqlite3_column_type/sqlite3_column_decltype only seems to work on
> selects; perhaps I'm missing something -- anybody know?)

Can we place the burden of knowing the type of the column on the
caller?  I mean, if they know it's a binary blob, they should tell us,
and then we don't decode it?

(Of course, if there's a way of knowing the type, we could DTRT
automatically for each type.)

bug#54591: 29.0.50; sqlite-select returns blob result as multibyte string

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

> Can we place the burden of knowing the type of the column on the
> caller?  I mean, if they know it's a binary blob, they should tell us,
> and then we don't decode it?

We could -- that was my last example:

>> "insert into test7 values (?, ?)" ["foo" (:binary binary)]

Or some syntax like that.  (And then never decode when we select from a
BLOB column.)  But...

> (Of course, if there's a way of knowing the type, we could DTRT
> automatically for each type.)

Yes, I'm hoping somebody else could have a look at the sqlite
documentation and tell me I'm missing some obvious way to get that
information.  :-)

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

bug#54591: 29.0.50; sqlite-select returns blob result as multibyte string

[Johannes Grødem]

Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:
>> (Of course, if there's a way of knowing the type, we could DTRT
>> automatically for each type.)
>
> Yes, I'm hoping somebody else could have a look at the sqlite
> documentation and tell me I'm missing some obvious way to get that
> information.  :-)

I might be misunderstanding the issue, but SQLite column types are more
like documentation than actual rules to be enforced, unless STRICT
tables are enabled.

https://www.sqlite.org/datatype3.html

In Python's SQLite3 API, ordinary strings are inserted as SQLite TEXTs
and bytestrings are inserted as SQLite BLOBs, and returned as the same
when you query. It's using a function similar to row_to_value for this,
except that it for some reason doesn't switch on SQLITE_BLOB, it just
calls sqlite3_column_blob and tests if it returns NULL or not and then
it does a switch on the remaining types.

Couldn't the Emacs interface just use vectors of byte values for BLOBs
both ways? Or is there another data type that makes more sense?

By the way, if you want to insert BLOBs in the query itself you can do
it like this, but I guess this doesn't need Emacs support, except maybe
a helper function for the conversion:

  INSERT INTO foo VALUES (X'deadcafe');

bug#54591: 29.0.50; sqlite-select returns blob result as multibyte string

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Johannes Grødem <fjas@grdm.no>
> Date: Fri, 01 Apr 2022 20:34:49 +0200
> 
> In Python's SQLite3 API, ordinary strings are inserted as SQLite TEXTs
> and bytestrings are inserted as SQLite BLOBs, and returned as the same
> when you query. It's using a function similar to row_to_value for this,
> except that it for some reason doesn't switch on SQLITE_BLOB, it just
> calls sqlite3_column_blob and tests if it returns NULL or not and then
> it does a switch on the remaining types.

This would be leaving the responsibility for the issue to the caller,
I think.  Does SQLite TEXT allow the superset of UTF-8 encoding Emacs
uses internally to store characters that are not in Unicode?  If it
does, we could indeed assume that any BLOB is binary data and not
attempt encoding/decoding it.

> Couldn't the Emacs interface just use vectors of byte values for BLOBs
> both ways?

Why?  Unibyte strings are easier and more flexible in Emacs.

Thanks.

bug#54591: 29.0.50; sqlite-select returns blob result as multibyte string

[Johannes Grødem]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
> This would be leaving the responsibility for the issue to the caller,
> I think.

I think that makes sense.

> Does SQLite TEXT allow the superset of UTF-8 encoding Emacs uses
> internally to store characters that are not in Unicode? If it does, we
> could indeed assume that any BLOB is binary data and not attempt
> encoding/decoding it.

SQLite documentation says this...

  TEXT. The value is a text string, stored using the database encoding
  (UTF-8, UTF-16BE or UTF-16LE).

...but it's still possible to store byte sequences that are not legal
Unicode in there. This breaks the mentioned Python SQLite3 API, and
possibly others, so maybe not great if someone wants to read tables from
something else than Emacs.

Python-SQLite3 will attempt to decode it as UTF8 unless cast as a blob:

  SELECT CAST(bad_text AS blob) FROM foo

(It works with the sqlite3 CLI, though.)

>> Couldn't the Emacs interface just use vectors of byte values for BLOBs
>> both ways?
> Why?  Unibyte strings are easier and more flexible in Emacs.

Sorry, just my lack of knowledge of Emacs types. Unibyte strings seem
fine for this.

bug#54591: 29.0.50; sqlite-select returns blob result as multibyte string

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Johannes Grødem <fjas@grdm.no>
> Date: Sat, 02 Apr 2022 08:33:55 +0200
> 
> > Does SQLite TEXT allow the superset of UTF-8 encoding Emacs uses
> > internally to store characters that are not in Unicode? If it does, we
> > could indeed assume that any BLOB is binary data and not attempt
> > encoding/decoding it.
> 
> SQLite documentation says this...
> 
>   TEXT. The value is a text string, stored using the database encoding
>   (UTF-8, UTF-16BE or UTF-16LE).
> 
> ...but it's still possible to store byte sequences that are not legal
> Unicode in there. This breaks the mentioned Python SQLite3 API, and
> possibly others, so maybe not great if someone wants to read tables from
> something else than Emacs.

This probably means we should reject text with raw bytes or characters
whose codepoints are beyond #x10FFFF, and document that those should
be encoded manually and stored as BLOBs.

Thanks.

bug#54591: 29.0.50; sqlite-select returns blob result as multibyte string

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Johannes Grødem <fjas@grdm.no> writes:

> I might be misunderstanding the issue, but SQLite column types are more
> like documentation than actual rules to be enforced, unless STRICT
> tables are enabled.

Yeah, you can put anything you want into TEXT and BLOB columns.  What
I'd like to see happening is that the Emacs interface here is
predictable and convenient, and that makes my brain hurt a bit here.

Let's take a TEXT column first.  Currently, if you have the multibyte
string "fóo" and insert with "insert into ... (?)", we encode to utf-8
and put the bytes #x66#xc3#xb3#x6f into the database.  Selecting from
the database, we get the bytes #x66#xc3#xb3#x6f back, decode and return
the string "fóo".

If you have a unibyte string containing the bytes #x66#xc3#xb3#x6f, we
don't do anything with that, but insert the bytes as is.  When
selecting, we decode and return "fóo", which is not what the user
inserted.  In this case, it would be nice to signal an error, but we
can't, because we don't know that it's a TEXT column in the first place.

Conversely, with BLOB columns, we would prefer to signal an error on
multibyte strings, but we can't, because we don't know that it's a BLOB
column.  But we do the right thing with unibyte strings -- if you give
it #x66#xc3#xb3#x6f, it'll put those bytes into the BLOB column, and
when selecting, we do know that it's a BLOB column, so we could return
the unibyte string #x66#xc3#xb3#x6f, and everything's fine.  However, if
the user wanted to insert the string "fóo", they'll be getting
#x66#xc3#xb3#x6f back and will probably be sad.

Today, the semantics are at least predictable: We insert everything
encoded to utf-8 (no matter whether using bound parameters or inside the
string), and if the user wanted something binary in the BLOB they
selected, they just have to call `decode-coding-string BLOB-RESULT
'utf-8' to get the binary data.

Which I understand is confusing, because it's very confusing indeed.
But it's consistent, at least.

If we knew what the type of the column we were inserting into, we could
be more helpful in the interface, but there doesn't seem to be a way to
get at that information?

> By the way, if you want to insert BLOBs in the query itself you can do
> it like this, but I guess this doesn't need Emacs support, except maybe
> a helper function for the conversion:
>
>   INSERT INTO foo VALUES (X'deadcafe');

Yes, but that leaves the issue to the caller, and the issue about what
to do when selecting is still unclear.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

bug#54591: 29.0.50; sqlite-select returns blob result as multibyte string

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org>
> Date: Sat, 02 Apr 2022 14:59:21 +0200
> Cc: 54591@debbugs.gnu.org
> 
> Let's take a TEXT column first.  Currently, if you have the multibyte
> string "fóo" and insert with "insert into ... (?)", we encode to utf-8
> and put the bytes #x66#xc3#xb3#x6f into the database.  Selecting from
> the database, we get the bytes #x66#xc3#xb3#x6f back, decode and return
> the string "fóo".
> 
> If you have a unibyte string containing the bytes #x66#xc3#xb3#x6f, we
> don't do anything with that, but insert the bytes as is.  When
> selecting, we decode and return "fóo", which is not what the user
> inserted.  In this case, it would be nice to signal an error, but we
> can't, because we don't know that it's a TEXT column in the first place.

We could store unibyte strings as BLOBs, couldn't we?

> Conversely, with BLOB columns, we would prefer to signal an error on
> multibyte strings, but we can't, because we don't know that it's a BLOB
> column.  But we do the right thing with unibyte strings -- if you give
> it #x66#xc3#xb3#x6f, it'll put those bytes into the BLOB column, and
> when selecting, we do know that it's a BLOB column, so we could return
> the unibyte string #x66#xc3#xb3#x6f, and everything's fine.  However, if
> the user wanted to insert the string "fóo", they'll be getting
> #x66#xc3#xb3#x6f back and will probably be sad.

We could refrain from decoding BLOBs, couldn't we?

bug#54591: 29.0.50; sqlite-select returns blob result as multibyte string

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

> We could store unibyte strings as BLOBs, couldn't we?

As I've said, we don't know whether a column is a TEXT or a BLOB column.
And "store as BLOB" has no particular meaning -- internally in sqlite,
there is no particular difference: Both are just a series of bytes, and
you can put any bytes you want into the columns.

> We could refrain from decoding BLOBs, couldn't we?

Yes, I think I said so?

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

bug#54591: 29.0.50; sqlite-select returns blob result as multibyte string

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

But I forgot to say what I think we should do.  :-)

I think we should just leave it to the user, and I think the interface
that makes the most sense is something like

"insert into ... (?)" (... (propertize binary-data 'coding-system 'binary))

and then signal an error if binary-data isn't unibyte when the string
has this property.  And then, conversely, don't decode BLOB columns on
selects.  I think that'll be the most interoperable and convenient we'll
be able to get.

(And, of course, document this mess.)

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

bug#54591: 29.0.50; sqlite-select returns blob result as multibyte string

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org>
> Cc: fjas@grdm.no,  54591@debbugs.gnu.org
> Date: Sat, 02 Apr 2022 15:59:28 +0200
> 
> Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
> 
> > We could store unibyte strings as BLOBs, couldn't we?
> 
> As I've said, we don't know whether a column is a TEXT or a BLOB column.

When storing? we could ask the caller to specify that, or
automatically consider unibyte non-ASCII strings as BLOBs.

> And "store as BLOB" has no particular meaning -- internally in sqlite,
> there is no particular difference: Both are just a series of bytes, and
> you can put any bytes you want into the columns.

Of course; the question is how those bytes are interpreted.  The
Python examples shown up-thread show the way, I think.

bug#54591: 29.0.50; sqlite-select returns blob result as multibyte string

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

> When storing? we could ask the caller to specify that,

That would be inconvenient in general.

> or automatically consider unibyte non-ASCII strings as BLOBs.

My exegesis upthread explained why that's problematic.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

bug#54591: 29.0.50; sqlite-select returns blob result as multibyte string

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org>
> Cc: fjas@grdm.no,  54591@debbugs.gnu.org
> Date: Sat, 02 Apr 2022 16:38:19 +0200
> 
> Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
> 
> > When storing? we could ask the caller to specify that,
> 
> That would be inconvenient in general.
> 
> > or automatically consider unibyte non-ASCII strings as BLOBs.
> 
> My exegesis upthread explained why that's problematic.

So you think this problems has no solution, none at all?

bug#54591: 29.0.50; sqlite-select returns blob result as multibyte string

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

> So you think this problems has no solution, none at all?

No, I posted a later post which has the solution I'm going to implement.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

bug#54591: 29.0.50; sqlite-select returns blob result as multibyte string

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> No, I posted a later post which has the solution I'm going to implement.

(Which is basically a tweak on one of the solutions I proposed in my
first message in this thread (with the comment "yuck").  I'm still
waiting for somebody to correct me that I'm reading the sqlite
documentation wrong and that you can actually find out the column type
you're inserting into, because it seems rather absurd that that
functionality doesn't exist.)

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

bug#54591: 29.0.50; sqlite-select returns blob result as multibyte string

[Rudolf Schlatte]

Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:
>
>> No, I posted a later post which has the solution I'm going to implement.
>
> (Which is basically a tweak on one of the solutions I proposed in my
> first message in this thread (with the comment "yuck").  I'm still
> waiting for somebody to correct me that I'm reading the sqlite
> documentation wrong and that you can actually find out the column type
> you're inserting into, because it seems rather absurd that that
> functionality doesn't exist.)

Does the transcript below do what you're looking for?

$ sqlite3
SQLite version 3.37.0 2021-12-09 01:34:53
Enter ".help" for usage hints.
Connected to a transient in-memory database.
Use ".open FILENAME" to reopen on a persistent database.
sqlite> create table foo(x text not null, y blob not null);
sqlite> select * from sqlite_master;
table|foo|foo|2|CREATE TABLE foo(x text not null, y blob not null)
sqlite> .schema sqlite_master
CREATE TABLE sqlite_master (
  type text,
  name text,
  tbl_name text,
  rootpage integer,
  sql text
);
sqlite>

bug#54591: 29.0.50; sqlite-select returns blob result as multibyte string

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Rudolf Schlatte <rudi@constantly.at> writes:

> Does the transcript below do what you're looking for?

Nope.  I need to know the type of the Xth column in a prepared statement
when inserting.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

bug#54591: 29.0.50; sqlite-select returns blob result as multibyte string

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> I think we should just leave it to the user, and I think the interface
> that makes the most sense is something like
>
> "insert into ... (?)" (... (propertize binary-data 'coding-system 'binary))
>
> and then signal an error if binary-data isn't unibyte when the string
> has this property.  And then, conversely, don't decode BLOB columns on
> selects.  I think that'll be the most interoperable and convenient we'll
> be able to get.

I've now done this on the trunk.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

bug#54591: 29.0.50; sqlite-select returns blob result as multibyte string

[Yuan Fu]

> On Mar 31, 2022, at 4:54 AM, Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> wrote:
> 
> Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
> 
>> Can we place the burden of knowing the type of the column on the
>> caller?  I mean, if they know it's a binary blob, they should tell us,
>> and then we don't decode it?
> 
> We could -- that was my last example:
> 
>>> "insert into test7 values (?, ?)" ["foo" (:binary binary)]
> 
> Or some syntax like that.  (And then never decode when we select from a
> BLOB column.)  But...
> 
>> (Of course, if there's a way of knowing the type, we could DTRT
>> automatically for each type.)
> 
> Yes, I'm hoping somebody else could have a look at the sqlite
> documentation and tell me I'm missing some obvious way to get that
> information.  :-)

I had a quick look at the log and didn’t see anything related to sql. So what do we end up doing? I think at least a notice could be added to the manual? Something like “Use (encode-coding-string xxx 'raw-text)) if you want to get out a binary blob”.

Yuan

bug#54591: 29.0.50; sqlite-select returns blob result as multibyte string

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Yuan Fu <casouri@gmail.com> writes:

> I had a quick look at the log and didn’t see anything related to
> sql.

Which log?

* | 5d032f2904..: Lars Ingebrigtsen 2022-04-28 Allow inserting and selecting binary blobs from sqlite

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

bug#54591: 29.0.50; sqlite-select returns blob result as multibyte string

[Yuan Fu]

> On Apr 29, 2022, at 3:04 AM, Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> wrote:
> 
> Yuan Fu <casouri@gmail.com> writes:
> 
>> I had a quick look at the log and didn’t see anything related to
>> sql.
> 
> Which log?
> 
> * | 5d032f2904..: Lars Ingebrigtsen 2022-04-28 Allow inserting and selecting binary blobs from sqlite
> 
> -- 
> (domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
>   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

Never mind :-)

Yuan