Problem with v3.12 and special characters in path
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#644 Problem with v3.12 and special characters in path
I have my database in a path with a directory which is only character 255 (alt-255, 0xFF), which is similar to a space in most viewers. I can open that database fine; but restarting pwsafe gives me "The datbase xy could not be opened" every time. This used to work including version 3.5, but now stopped working with 3.12. I didn't check the versions between, so I can't say when exactly it stopped working. (It looks like the 0xFF character got cleaned before writing to the .cfg file.)
Logged In: YES
user_id=1730698
Originator: NO
I cannot reproduce this with V3.12 (1922). I created a directory of name 'Alt-255' as you described. I was able to create a database within it and close PWS, restart it and re-open the database with no problem.
The directory name is not blank on my system (Windows XP Pro SP2 - UK English) but looks like a lower case 'y' with an umlaut. The configuration file has the same looking character with it too. I also tried a database with this character within its name and that worked fine - also shown as a lower case 'y' with an umlaut within the configuration file.
It is debatable whether special characters like this should be converted to the XML standard for hexadecimal or special (via the numeric keypad) characters when written to the configuration file (i.e. 0xFF in XML format would be either 'ÿ' or 'ÿ'). I am not sure how PWS would determine whether a character was 'printable' in all locales (e.g. English Latin, Nordic Latin, Russian, Chinese etc. etc.).
Up to V3.5, Microsoft's XML processor was used for the configuration file. From V3.5.02 onwards (including V3.12), this was changed to another (TinyXML) which had less issues and was portable. I know that my normal configuration file has XML characters "&" and "'" within it for "&" and "'" respectively - so it must do some translations.
David