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Bug #16497

open

StringIO#internal_encoding is broken (more severely in 2.7)

Added by zverok (Victor Shepelev) about 4 years ago. Updated over 2 years ago.

Status:
Assigned
Target version:
-
[ruby-core:96758]

Description

To the best of my understanding from Encoding docs, the following is true:

  • external encoding (explicitly specified or taken from Encoding.default_external) specifies how the IO understands input and stores it internally
  • internal encoding (explicitly specified or taken from Encoding.default_internal) specifies how the IO converts what it reads.

Demonstration with regular files:

# prepare data
File.write('test.txt', 'Україна'.encode('KOI8-U'), encoding: 'KOI8-U') #=> 7

def test(io)
  str = io.read
  [io.external_encoding, io.internal_encoding, str, str.encoding]
end

# read it:
test(File.open('test.txt', 'r:KOI8-U'))
# => [#<Encoding:KOI8-U>, nil, "\xF5\xCB\xD2\xC1\xA7\xCE\xC1", #<Encoding:KOI8-U>]

# We can specify internal encoding when opening the file:
test(File.open('test.txt', 'r:KOI8-U:UTF-8'))
# => [#<Encoding:KOI8-U>, #<Encoding:UTF-8>, "Україна", #<Encoding:UTF-8>]

# ...or when it is already opened
test(File.open('test.txt').tap { |f| f.set_encoding('KOI8-U', 'UTF-8') })
# => [#<Encoding:KOI8-U>, #<Encoding:UTF-8>, "Україна", #<Encoding:UTF-8>]

# ...or with Encoding.default_internal
Encoding.default_internal = 'UTF-8'
test(File.open('test.txt', 'r:KOI8-U'))
# => [#<Encoding:KOI8-U>, #<Encoding:UTF-8>, "Україна", #<Encoding:UTF-8>]

But with StringIO, internal encoding can't be set in Ruby 2.6:

require 'stringio'
Encoding.default_internal = nil
str = 'Україна'.encode('KOI8-U')

# Simplest form:
test(StringIO.new(str))
# => [#<Encoding:KOI8-U>, nil, "\xF5\xCB\xD2\xC1\xA7\xCE\xC1", #<Encoding:KOI8-U>]

# Try to set via mode
test(StringIO.new(str, 'r:KOI8-U:UTF-8'))
# => [#<Encoding:KOI8-U>, nil, "\xF5\xCB\xD2\xC1\xA7\xCE\xC1", #<Encoding:KOI8-U>]

# Try to set via set_encoding:
test(StringIO.new(str, 'r:KOI8-U:UTF-8').tap { |f| f.set_encoding('KOI8-U', 'UTF-8') })
# => [#<Encoding:KOI8-U>, nil, "\xF5\xCB\xD2\xC1\xA7\xCE\xC1", #<Encoding:KOI8-U>]

# Try to set via Enoding.default_internal:
Encoding.default_internal = 'UTF-8'
test(StringIO.new(str))
# => [#<Encoding:KOI8-U>, nil, "\xF5\xCB\xD2\xC1\xA7\xCE\xC1", #<Encoding:KOI8-U>]

So, in 2.6, any attempt to do something with StringIO's internal encoding are just ignored.

In 2.7, though, matters became much worse:

require 'stringio'
Encoding.default_internal = nil
str = 'Україна'.encode('KOI8-U')

# Behaves same as 2.6
test(StringIO.new(str))
# => [#<Encoding:KOI8-U>, nil, "\xF5\xCB\xD2\xC1\xA7\xCE\xC1", #<Encoding:KOI8-U>]

# Try to set via mode: WEIRD behavior starts
test(StringIO.new(str, 'r:KOI8-U:UTF-8'))
# => [#<Encoding:UTF-8>, nil, "\xF5\xCB\xD2\xC1\xA7\xCE\xC1", #<Encoding:UTF-8>]

# Try to set via set_encoding: still just ignored
test(StringIO.new(str, 'r:KOI8-U:UTF-8').tap { |f| f.set_encoding('KOI8-U', 'UTF-8') })
# => [#<Encoding:KOI8-U>, nil, "\xF5\xCB\xD2\xC1\xA7\xCE\xC1", #<Encoding:KOI8-U>]

# Try to set via Enoding.default_internal: WEIRD behavior again
Encoding.default_internal = 'UTF-8'
test(StringIO.new(str))
# => [#<Encoding:UTF-8>, nil, "\xF5\xCB\xD2\xC1\xA7\xCE\xC1", #<Encoding:UTF-8>]

So, 2.7 not just ignores attempts to set internal encoding, but erroneously sets it to external one, so strings are not recoded, but their encoding is forced to change.

I believe it is severe bug (more severe than 2.6's "just ignoring").

This Reddit thread shows how it breaks existing code:

  • the author uses StringIO to work with ASCII-8BIT strings;
  • the code is performed in Rails environment (which sets internal_encoding to UTF-8 by default);
  • under 2.7, StringIO#read returns ASCII-8BIT content in Strings saying their encoding is UTF-8.

Related issues 1 (0 open1 closed)

Related to Ruby master - Bug #19235: StringIO.new(encoding: "ext_enc:int_enc") doesn't set external encodingClosedActions
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