Re: Patch to document base64 encoding

Hi Fabien,

On Tue, 5 Mar 2019 07:09:01 +0100 (CET)
Fabien COELHO <coelho(at)cri(dot)ensmp(dot)fr> wrote:

> > Doc patch, against master. Documents encode() and decode() base64
> > format.
>
> It is already documented. Enhance documentation, though.

Right. I was thinking that there are various implementations
of the base64 data format and so it needed more than
just to be named.

> > Attached: doc_base64_v1.patch
> >
> > References RFC2045 section 6.8 to define base64.
>
> Did you consider referencing RFC 4648 instead?

Not really. What drew me to document was the line
breaks every 76 characters. So I pretty much went
straight to the MIME RFC which says there should
be breaks at 76 characters.

I can see advantages and disadvantages either way.
More or less extraneous information either semi
or not base64 related in either RFC.
Which RFC do you think should be referenced?

Attached: doc_base64_v2.patch

This new version adds a phrase clarifying that
decode errors are raised when trailing padding
is wrong. Seemed like I may as well be explicit.

(I am not entirely pleased with the double dash
but can't come up with anything better. And
can't make an emdash entity work either.)

Thanks for taking a look.

Regards,

Karl <kop(at)meme(dot)com>
Free Software: "You don't pay back, you pay forward."
-- Robert A. Heinlein