Christopher Kerr <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > After being burned by using `head -c6 /dev/urandom | base64` as part of a > directory name, I realised that it would be useful if base64 had an option to > generate URL and Filename safe encodings, as specified in RFC 3548 section 4. > > This would make > cat FILE | base64 --filename-safe > equivalent to > cat FILE | base64 | tr '+/' '-_' > using the current coreutils tools.
I think --filename-safe is a good idea. The documentation should discuss the potential for generating files starting with '-' or '--'. Patching gnulib's base64.c to support an arbitrary alphabet seems messy. Patches welcome though. Regarding the discussion of different characters to use, let me add that '+' is not a URI safe character, so it would be unsafe from that aspect. I believe the parameter name clash is the least problematic consequence that we can chose. /Simon _______________________________________________ Bug-coreutils mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-coreutils
