Re: [TCLCORE] CFV warning: TIP #699: Eliminate encoding alias "binary"...

[Brian G. <bri...@ea...>]

On Jun 25, 2024, at 06:30, Jan Nijtmans <jan...@gm...<mailto:jan...@gm...>> wrote:

This is a CFV warning for TIP #699:
   Eliminate encoding alias "binary"; provide introspection for binary channels
   <https://core.tcl-lang.org/tips/doc/trunk/tip/699.md>

It's meant for Tcl 9.0+ only (except for the "chan isbinary"
command).

If you think this is a bad idea, speak up now. If not,
I'll start the vote in a few days.

I think it's a bad idea making "binary" conceptually equivalent to "iso-8859-1". At the script level, this implantation detail is irrelevant, and potentially misleading. The term "binary" means the bytes have NO meaning, they are just 8-bit numeric values. However, iso-8859-1 specifies an abstract meaning to each byte value. For example, 0x0a is NOT a linefeed in raw binary. It is only a linefeed as defined by iso-8859-1. This distinction is important, and should be reflected in the configuration of the channel, even if this has no material impact on the underlying implantation that moves these various bytes around internally.

"A lot of extensions mis-use the "binary" encoding."

I don't consider many of these examples as mis-use, just simply redundant. There's a difference.
It would be smart to return an error if a redundant setting leads to an inconsistency, otherwise let it be.

I do agree with adding [chan isbinary]. Better yet, provide a chan subcommand to return all the access and permissions settings given when opened.

-Brian


Regards,
        Jan Nijtmans


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