[ruby-core:94549] [Ruby master Bug#13970] Base64 urlsafe_decode64 unsafe use of tr.

Issue #13970 has been updated by jeremyevans0 (Jeremy Evans).

Status changed from Open to Rejected

I don't think this is a bug.  Most pure Ruby code assumes and does not check that method arguments respond to all methods that the code expects them to respond to. It's generally considered a smell to take code like:

```ruby
def foo(bar, baz)
  bar.x + baz.y
end
```

and change it to:

```ruby
def foo(bar, baz)
  raise ArgumentError, "bar does not respond to x" unless bar.respond_to?(:x)
  raise ArgumentError, "baz does not respond to y" unless baz.respond_to?(:y)
  bar.x + baz.y
end
```

Especially if `bar` or `baz` could be instances of subclasses of BasicObject and not Object with the `x` and `y` methods defined, respectively.

----------------------------------------
Bug #13970: Base64 urlsafe_decode64 unsafe use of tr.
https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/13970#change-80997

* Author: shanna (Shane Hanna)
* Status: Rejected
* Priority: Normal
* Assignee: 
* Target version: 
* ruby -v: 
* Backport: 2.3: UNKNOWN, 2.4: UNKNOWN
----------------------------------------
A lot of the base64 module lacks duck typing or nice errors.

For example the `urlsafe_decode64` function never checks `str` is something that behaves like a string and will respond to `tr`.
If you pass `nil` by mistake you end up with the dreaded "can't call method on (n)" rather than an informative error.

~~~ ruby
  def urlsafe_decode64(str)
    # NOTE: RFC 4648 does say nothing about unpadded input, but says that
    # "the excess pad characters MAY also be ignored", so it is inferred that
    # unpadded input is also acceptable.
    str = str.tr("-_", "+/")
    if !str.end_with?("=") && str.length % 4 != 0
      str = str.ljust((str.length + 3) & ~3, "=")
    end
    strict_decode64(str)
  end
~~~

Raising an error or silently failing if the argument doesn't respond to `tr` (or `to_s.tr`) both seem preferable to errors raised by the internal implementation but I'm wondering if there is a preferred approach in Rubys stdlib? 



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