From: "byroot (Jean Boussier)" Date: 2022-02-17T09:16:43+00:00 Subject: [ruby-core:107620] [Ruby master Feature#18576] Rename `ASCII-8BIT` encoding to `BINARY` Issue #18576 has been updated by byroot (Jean Boussier). Can I make a counter proposal? We could keep `Encoding#name` as `"ASCII-8BIT"`, but change `Encoding#inspect` and make sure `EncodingError` use the `BINARY` name in its error messages. What do you think? ---------------------------------------- Feature #18576: Rename `ASCII-8BIT` encoding to `BINARY` https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/18576#change-96531 * Author: byroot (Jean Boussier) * Status: Rejected * 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: