[ruby-core:116855] [Ruby master Feature#18576] Rename `ASCII-8BIT` encoding to `BINARY`
From:
"Dan0042 (Daniel DeLorme) via ruby-core" <ruby-core@...>
Date:
2024-02-19 23:02:55 UTC
List:
ruby-core #116855
Issue #18576 has been updated by Dan0042 (Daniel DeLorme). I've come to realize something; when an ASCII-8BIT string contains only asc= ii characters, it behaves exactly like a US-ASCII string and in such a case= it feels unnatural to call it "binary" (at least for me). But as soon as t= here is a non-ascii byte, it becomes incompatible with every other encoding= and then truly deserves to be called BINARY. And that's when encoding erro= rs occur. So in error messages, "BINARY" makes perfect sense to me since th= e error occurs due to the string being in "binary" state rather than "ascii= -only" state. The distinction may be irrelevant to others but at least it h= as helped me put into words and understand why it felt so uncomfortable to = change the name to "BINARY". Just my 2=A2 ---------------------------------------- Feature #18576: Rename `ASCII-8BIT` encoding to `BINARY` https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/18576#change-106887 * Author: byroot (Jean Boussier) * Status: Open * Priority: Normal * Target version: 3.4 ---------------------------------------- ### Context I'm now used to it, but something that confused me for years was errors suc= h as: ```ruby >> "f=E9e" + "\xFF".b (irb):3:in `+': incompatible character encodings: UTF-8 and ASCII-8BIT (Enc= oding::CompatibilityError) ``` When you aren't that familiar with Ruby, it's really not evident that `ASCI= I-8BIT` basically means "no encoding" or "binary". And even when you know it, if you don't read carefully it's very easily con= fused with `US-ASCII`. The `Encoding::BINARY` alias is much more telling IMHO. ### Proposal Since `Encoding::ASCII_8BIT` has been aliased as `Encoding::BINARY` for yea= rs, 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 A= PI 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 co= ncern. --=20 https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/ ______________________________________________ ruby-core mailing list -- ruby-core@ml.ruby-lang.org To unsubscribe send an email to ruby-core-leave@ml.ruby-lang.org ruby-core info -- https://ml.ruby-lang.org/mailman3/postorius/lists/ruby-c= ore.ml.ruby-lang.org/