There are several different approaches in different places:

- FileStream reads strings by default. #binary and #ascii switch between formats. File streams use an internal buffer which is either a String (default) or a ByteArray. It�s even possible to switch between binary and ascii midstream without losing information (if done right) because it only affects the buffer.

- ReadStream and WriteStream cannot change their format. Their behavior is determined by the underlying collection. Forcing conversions (e.g. by #asString) can lead to loss of information

- RWBinaryOrTextStream (and other subclasses of ReadWriteStream) also support the #binary #ascii method of switching format. Default is #ascii

- SocketStream uses the same #binary / #ascii mechanism. Default is #ascii

- ZnLimitedReadStream uses the same #binary / #ascii mechanism. Default is #binary (implicit); depends on the underlying stream

I think the pattern to follow is clear: ReadStream and WriteStream should allow switching format with #ascii and #binary, default should be #ascii. However, I suspect there�s a reason that these classes don�t support switching, namely that switching makes the implementation more complicated and also slower because more checks need to be made.

The easiest solution I see would be to implement something like this:

ReadStream>>next

^ self isBinary

ifTrue: [ self basicNext asCharacter ]

ifFalse: [ self basicNext ]

However, #next et al. are implemented in a plugin and the primitive method looks like this:

ReadStream>>next

<primitive: 65>�

position >= readLimit�

ifTrue: [^nil]�

ifFalse: [^collection at: (position := position + 1)]

This means the collection instance variable has to hold either a binary or a string collection.

I�ve found a solution which would work and I�ve whipped up a working way (there�s space for improvement�):

ReadStream>>binary

collection isString ifFalse: [ ^ self ].

collection := (ByteArray new: collection size) copyReplaceFrom: 1 to: collection size with: collection

ReadStrem>>ascii

collection isString ifTrue: [ ^ self ].

collection := (String new: collection size) copyReplaceFrom: 1 to: collection size with: collection

@Damien

opposed to what I wrote earlier, #asString does *not* destroy non-printable characters. Instead, every byte (from 0 to 255) is encoded as a character and thus the string can be converted back to a ByteArray *without* loss of information. Sorry about that.

With this change in place the 12259 would become obsolete.

Please let me know what you think. This is a pretty big change that might have a lot of consequences in the image.

Cheers,

Max

On 04.12.2013, at 13:14, Max Leske <maxleske@gmail.com> wrote:

Let me see what I can come up with.

On 03.12.2013, at 19:36, Damien Cassou <damien.cassou@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks Max for the report. Do you have an idea on how we could solve the problem ? The previous behaviour was not acceptable either because the streams that came out of a memory filesystem were the only ones with binary content

On Dec 3, 2013 5:35 PM, "Max Leske" <maxleske@gmail.com> wrote:

Damien, Marcus

this change breaks a lot of things in FileSystem-Git. I don�t disagree with the idea that reading characters should be default (one could argue about it�) but your change makes it IMPOSSIBLE to read bytes because unprintable characters are discarded! So if my ByteArray is a NULL terminated string, for instance, I can not check for the NULL termination anymore.

Cheers,
Max