From: "naruse (Yui NARUSE)" Date: 2022-02-08T09:41:23+00:00 Subject: [ruby-core:107517] [Ruby master Feature#18576] Rename `ASCII-8BIT` encoding to `BINARY` Issue #18576 has been updated by naruse (Yui NARUSE). duerst (Martin D��rst) wrote in #note-1: > Well, it's actually not just binary. Binary would mean that none of the bytes have any 'meaning' (i.e. characters) assigned to them. But ASCII-8BIT actually has character 'meaning' assigned to the ASCII range. I agree the principle. But we should consider this proposal as "ASCII range of binary data in the world is usually ASCII. Why you call them as complex name: ASCII-8BIT?" I think the name of the encoding is a communication tool. We should compare pros and cons between ASCII-8BIT and BINARY. ---------------------------------------- Feature #18576: Rename `ASCII-8BIT` encoding to `BINARY` https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/18576#change-96422 * Author: byroot (Jean Boussier) * Status: Open * Priority: Normal ---------------------------------------- ### Context I'm now used to it, but something that confused me for years was errors such as: ```ruby >> "f��e" + "\xFF".b (irb):3:in `+': incompatible character encodings: UTF-8 and ASCII-8BIT (Encoding::CompatibilityError) ``` When you aren't that familiar with Ruby, it's really not evident that `ASCII-8BIT` basically means "no encoding" or "binary". And even when you know it, if you don't read carefully it's very easily confused with `US-ASCII`. The `Encoding::BINARY` alias is much more telling IMHO. ### Proposal Since `Encoding::ASCII_8BIT` has been aliased as `Encoding::BINARY` for years, I think renaming it to `BINARY` and then making asking `ASCII_8BIT` the alias would significantly improve usability without backward compatibility concerns. The only concern I could see would be the consistency with a handful of C API functions: - `rb_encoding *rb_ascii8bit_encoding(void)` - `int rb_ascii8bit_encindex(void)` - `VALUE rb_io_ascii8bit_binmode(VALUE io)` But that's for much more advanced users, so I don't think it's much of a concern. -- https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/ Unsubscribe: