From: daz <dooby@...10.karoo.co.uk>
Date: 2004-05-13T11:18:52+09:00
Subject: Re: String#unpack and null-terminated strings


Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:
> Hi.
>
> In message "Re: String#unpack and null-terminated strings"
>     on 04/05/12, nobu.nokada@softhome.net <nobu.nokada@softhome.net> writes:
>
> |At Mon, 10 May 2004 17:53:35 +0900,
> |Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote in [ruby-talk:99719]:
> |> I finally got time to consider this issue.  Perl seems to work the way
> |> Daz described in [ruby-talk:98364].  Could you commit the changes, Nobu?
> |
> |What about 1.8?
>
> Hmm.  Go ahead.  I now think it's the only reasonable behavior for "Z"
> with NUL containing strings.
>
> matz.
>


Thanks, Matz.



The plea below is now wasted :))

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Hi Nobu,

Good to see your return, as always.


As the changes only affects 'Z'-types in Strings with embedded null(s),
the impact should be extremely low.

I'm trying to think of any kind of string which might contain
significant nulls but also has a null as terminator.

I've seen some where null delimits fields and double-null terminates
but that rare case might be the only one to break *iff* a
programmer had decided that the best method to use on that type of string
was unpack('Z*').

Embedded nulls are common when reading from binary files
(e.g. encoded characters) but I feel that it would never be a good idea
to strip _trailing_ nulls in that context.

Voting +1 for inclusion in 1.8, also.  Much more usable :-)


Thanks,

daz

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