From: cs5b@...
Date: 2006-10-21T12:30:12+09:00
Subject: Re: rexml difficulties

I was just calling REXML::Text.normalize...I guess that is not
sufficient.
I give base64 encode a try.

THanks for you help.

Christian

gregarican wrote:
> This is something that I personally use for a Ruby routine I have that
> stores stock item images for the retail jewelry company I work for. I
> extract JPG images and store them as Base-64 encoded elements in an XML
> file. Then I port that into a SQL database. To extract the images I
> just decode them. Works like a charm and perhaps saves some SQL
> resources since I'm not storing the images and actual BLOB items...
>
> James Britt wrote:
> > Harold Hausman wrote:
> >
> > > It sounds like you might have some experience in this area. Not to
> > > hijack the OP, but could you possibly describe the process you would
> > > go through if you had a completely random pile of binary barf that you
> > > wanted to store as an XML attribute?
> > >
> > > Would your process include using Base64?
> >
> > http://www.topxml.com/xml/articles/binary/
> >
> > "Base64 encoding, specified in RFC 2045 - MIME (Multipurpose Internet
> > Mail Extensions) uses a 64-character subset (A-Za-z0-9+/) to represent
> > binary data and = for padding. Base64 processes data as 24-bit groups,
> > mapping this data to four encoded characters. It is sometimes referred
> > to as 3-to-4 encoding. Each 6 bits of the 24-bit group is used as an
> > index into a mapping table (the base64 alphabet) to obtain a character
> > for the encoded data. According to the MIME specification the encoded
> > data has line lengths limited to 76 characters, but this line length
> > restriction does not apply when transmitting binary data as part of XML
> > document."
> >
> >
> >
> > It's a common, practical approach.
> >
> >
> > --
> > James Britt
> > 
> > "Every object obscures another object."
> >     - Luis Bunuel