search

holochain / n3h

nodejs implementation of holochain networking / p2p backend process
48 stars 7 forks source link

Consider changing base64 `_` and `-` symbols to `_` and `+` #31

Closed pjkundert closed 5 years ago

pjkundert commented 5 years ago

We want to avoid situations where Holochain keys A) break across lines in small browser windows, or B) don't get completely selected by standard double-click selection methods.

Browsers break lines across _ and -, but they do not appear to break lines across +~@#$*!:

File Edit Options Buffers Tools HTML SGML Text Help
<!doctype html>
<html lang=en>
  <head>
    <meta charset=utf-8>
    <title>blah</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <p>I'm the content</p>
    <p>lkajsdfjasdfoifuiuqywe/adoijaposdijfpoasd\pioausdpoifaskjlkjaljfalskdfj/jlkjasdfasdhfiasdf\jsdfuy66asdfqew13ayasyadsqe8
    <p>lkajsdfjasdfoifuiuqywe_adoijaposdijfpoasd-pioausdpoifaskjlkjaljfalskdfj_jlkjasdfasdhfiasdf-jsdfuy66asdfqew13ayasyadsqe8
    <p>lkajsdfjasdfoifuiuqywe$sdoijaposdijfpoaso*Oioausdpoifaskjlkjaljfalskdfj$Slkjasdfasdhfiasdf*jsdfuy66asdfqew13ayasyadsqe8
    <p>lkajsdfjasdfoifuiuqywe/adoijaposdijfpoasd*pioausdpoifaskjlkjaljfalskdfj/jlkjasdfasdhfiasdf+jsdfuy66asdfqew13ayasyadsqe8
    <p>lkajsdfjasdfoifuiuqywe@adoijaposdijfpoasd#pioausdpoifaskjlkjaljfalskdfj@jlkjasdfasdhfiasdf#jsdfuy66asdfqew13ayasyadsqe8
    <p>lkajsdfjasdfoifuiuqywe^adoijaposdijfpoasd&pioausdpoifaskjlkjaljfalskdfj^jlkjasdfasdhfiasdf&jsdfuy66asdfqew13ayasyadsqe8
    <p>lkajsdfjasdfoifuiuqywe!adoijaposdijfpoasd~pioausdpoifaskjlkjaljfalskdfj!jlkjasdfasdhfiasdf~jsdfuy66asdfqew13ayasyadsqe8
    <p>lkajsdfjasdfoifuiuqywe+adoijaposdijfpoasd~pioausdpoifaskjlkjaljfalskdfj+jlkjasdfasdhfiasdf~jsdfuy66asdfqew13ayasyadsqe8
    <p>lkajsdfjasdfoifuiuqywe.adoijaposdijfpoasd,pioausdpoifaskjlkjaljfalskdfj|jlkjasdfasdhfiasdf?jsdfuy66asdfqew13ayasyadsqe8
    <p>lkajsdfjasdfoifuiuqywe_adoijaposdijfpoasd%pioausdpoifaskjlkjaljfalskdfj_jlkjasdfasdhfiasdf%jsdfuy66asdfqew13ayasyadsqe8
    <p>lkajsdfjasdfoifuiuqywe_adoijaposdijfpoasd:pioausdpoifaskjlkjaljfalskdfj_jlkjasdfasdhfiasdf;jsdfuy66asdfqew13ayasyadsqe8
    <p>lkajsdfjasdfoifuiuqywe_adoijaposdijfpoasd+pioausdpoifaskjlkjaljfalskdfj_jlkjasdfasdhfiasdf+jsdfuy66asdfqew13ayasyadsqe8
  </body>
</html>

As for double-click selection, the restrictions are even greater. At least on a Mac, double-clicking in the browser stops at all punctuation, except for _. Difficult... There are no other safe non-alphanumeric characters for in-browser double-click selection.

In the terminal, double-clicking stops at all punctuation except for +~_-/\. So, I would recommend we switch to at least another character that is both visually distinguishable from _, and avoids browser line-splitting. Any combination of the above characters would suffice.

That boils down to one of the set intersection of +~@#$*! and +~_-/\; so one of +~. The most visually distinguishable one is +...

Thus, at least we'll have no more split lines in browsers, and full-key selectability in (at least some) terminals. And, improved visual distinguishability for manual data entry of any hkZ... Holochain keys.

neonphog commented 5 years ago

@pjkundert

I was attempting to follow a standard. In this case, the base64url variant: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4648#section-5

If we're going to deviate from that, it might be better to go to something like base58, despite the (much) larger encoding / decoding overhead. (of course, that'd mess up our hk prefix)

pjkundert commented 5 years ago

Makes sense. The base64 encoding has always been problematic no match which variant we choose. Might as well stick to the standard.