Re: uuencode: multi-bytes char in remote file name contains bytes >0x80

[Eric Blake]

On 07/05/2011 10:58 AM, Bruce Korb wrote:
> On 07/05/11 08:06, Eric Blake wrote:
>> I'm not quite sure what you are asking me to do here.  Maybe it helps to
>> read the current POSIX requirements on uuencode output:
>>
>> http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/uuencode.html
> 
> I read that, though I was sure not as carefully as someone regularly in
> on the meeting. :)  Reading it again:
> 
>> The pathname of the file into which the uudecode utility shall place
>> the decoded file. ... If there are
>> characters in decode_pathname that are not in the portable filename
>> character set the results are unspecified.
>   ==>>      ^^^^ needs a comma after "set".
> 
> leads me to believe that this:
> 
>   begin 444 hex-encode-EN:414243
> 
> can, for example, be validly used to create a file named "ABC"
> in the english language domain, with obvious extensions for CN.
> The ":" character being non-portable relieves the application from
> being required to create a file named "hex-encode-EN:414243".

You are correct that it would work.  The ':' cannot appear in any file
created by a POSIX-compliant use of uuencode, therefore uudecode, upon
seeing a ':' in the file name position, can assume that the input file
must have been created by a uuencode version that was using an extension
to POSIX, and therefore uudecode can blindly try to decode that name
without violating POSIX.

> It is just that a new uudecode might surprise someone trying
> to create a file named "hex-encode-DE:BADF".

Under your encoding scheme for all possible filenames that fall outside
the bounds of the POSIX portable file name set, you merely encode such a
file name as:

begin 444 hex-encode-EN:6865782d656e636f64652d44453a42414446

that is, presence of : in the desired output name implies that the file
name must be encoded, just the same as any 8-bit byte also makes that
implication.

-- 
Eric Blake   address@hidden    +1-801-349-2682
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org

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