* Is QP bad for binary files? @ 2001-07-11 23:00 Kai Großjohann 2001-07-12 1:27 ` Daniel Pittman 2001-07-12 1:31 ` ShengHuo ZHU 0 siblings, 2 replies; 4+ messages in thread From: Kai Großjohann @ 2001-07-11 23:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Suppose I send a binary file as an attachment, and it is encoded in quoted-printable rather than base64. I'm thinking maybe strange things might happen to line endings in that file. For if I send it from a Unix system to a Windows system, \n can become \r\n on the way. Does this really happen? Can it really happen? If this really happens, then I think this would be a good reason to refrain from using QP for binary files. Gnus fairly often uses QP for PDF files. kai -- ~/.signature: No such file or directory ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 4+ messages in thread
* Re: Is QP bad for binary files? 2001-07-11 23:00 Is QP bad for binary files? Kai Großjohann @ 2001-07-12 1:27 ` Daniel Pittman 2001-07-12 1:31 ` ShengHuo ZHU 1 sibling, 0 replies; 4+ messages in thread From: Daniel Pittman @ 2001-07-12 1:27 UTC (permalink / raw) On Thu, 12 Jul 2001, Kai Großjohann wrote: > Suppose I send a binary file as an attachment, and it is encoded in > quoted-printable rather than base64. I'm thinking maybe strange > things might happen to line endings in that file. For if I send it > from a Unix system to a Windows system, \n can become \r\n on the way. > > Does this really happen? Can it really happen? Yes, it really happens. No, it shouldn't happen. The problem is that the authors of every major Win32 mail client *know* that Quoted-Printable is *always* text, never anything else. They know this so well, in fact, that they ignore the `application/' part of the MIME type[1] as well as the fact that Gnus has encoded it such that the line endings are encoded in QP and the raw line endings are elided[2]. They then convert it to the local line ending type, in a variety of stupid ways[3], with no notice to the user. Then, finally, they pass the broken result off to the application to display which, unsurprising as this may be, complains that it's binary data[4] has been corrupted and fails. Unless, of course, it's Abode Acrobat, which simply displays an empty page because we all know that error messages scare the user -- and it's better to silently fail than scare the user.[5] > If this really happens, then I think this would be a good reason to > refrain from using QP for binary files. Gnus fairly often uses QP for > PDF files. This breaks the legs of that particular problem for me -- I have not seen an issue with it since: ,----[ .gnus.el excerpt ] | ;; Force application/* to be sent base64; QP vs Win32 breaks things | (require 'mm-encode) | (setq mm-content-transfer-encoding-defaults | (append (remassoc "application/.*" | (remassoc ".*" mm-content-transfer-encoding-defaults)) | '(("application/.*" base64) | (".*" qp-or-base64)))) `---- Daniel Footnotes: [1] Which specifies that this is binary data, not text, and that you better not modify it or you will suffer (and break it) according to the MIME RFC set. [2] This is not only legal but the *required* behavior according to the QP specification, in it's RFC, which explicitly states that this is the way to transport line endings without mangling. [3] Including adding a <CR> to every <LF> even if there was already one there in at least one case. [4] No matter how much it really was text, because we all know PDF isn't PostScript, honest.[5] [5] Yes, I am bitter. Why do you ask? -- You want to be famous and rich and happy, but you're terrified you have nothing to offer this world. Nothing to say and no way to say it, but you can say it in three languages. -- KMFDF, _Dogma_ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 4+ messages in thread
* Re: Is QP bad for binary files? 2001-07-11 23:00 Is QP bad for binary files? Kai Großjohann 2001-07-12 1:27 ` Daniel Pittman @ 2001-07-12 1:31 ` ShengHuo ZHU 2001-07-12 1:48 ` Randal L. Schwartz 1 sibling, 1 reply; 4+ messages in thread From: ShengHuo ZHU @ 2001-07-12 1:31 UTC (permalink / raw) Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) writes: > Suppose I send a binary file as an attachment, and it is encoded in > quoted-printable rather than base64. I'm thinking maybe strange > things might happen to line endings in that file. For if I send it > from a Unix system to a Windows system, \n can become \r\n on the way. > > Does this really happen? Can it really happen? > > If this really happens, then I think this would be a good reason to > refrain from using QP for binary files. Gnus fairly often uses QP for > PDF files. I've changed the default to base64 instead of qp-or-base64. ShengHuo ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 4+ messages in thread
* Re: Is QP bad for binary files? 2001-07-12 1:31 ` ShengHuo ZHU @ 2001-07-12 1:48 ` Randal L. Schwartz 0 siblings, 0 replies; 4+ messages in thread From: Randal L. Schwartz @ 2001-07-12 1:48 UTC (permalink / raw) Cc: ding >>>>> "ZSH" == ShengHuo ZHU <zsh@cs.rochester.edu> writes: ZSH> I've changed the default to base64 instead of qp-or-base64. Me too, because I was getting some PDFs that couldn't be encoded, and it was very frustrating. '(("text/x-patch" 8bit) ("text/.*" qp-or-base64) ("message/rfc822" 8bit) ("application/emacs-lisp" 8bit) ("application/x-patch" 8bit) (".*" base64)) -- Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095 <merlyn@stonehenge.com> <URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/> Perl/Unix/security consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc. See PerlTraining.Stonehenge.com for onsite and open-enrollment Perl training! ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 4+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2001-07-12 1:48 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 4+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 2001-07-11 23:00 Is QP bad for binary files? Kai Großjohann 2001-07-12 1:27 ` Daniel Pittman 2001-07-12 1:31 ` ShengHuo ZHU 2001-07-12 1:48 ` Randal L. Schwartz
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox; as well as URLs for NNTP newsgroup(s).