This issue tracker has been migrated to GitHub, and is currently read-only.
For more information, see the GitHub FAQs in the Python's Developer Guide.

classification
Title: utf-16 BOM is not skipped after seek(0)
Type: Stage:
Components: Versions: Python 3.0
process
Status: closed Resolution: fixed
Dependencies: Superseder:
Assigned To: Nosy List: amaury.forgeotdarc, benjamin.peterson, lemburg, pitrou, vstinner
Priority: critical Keywords: patch

Created on 2009-01-07 00:21 by amaury.forgeotdarc, last changed 2022-04-11 14:56 by admin. This issue is now closed.

Files
File name Uploaded Description Edit
io_utf16.patch amaury.forgeotdarc, 2009-01-07 00:21
Messages (11)
msg79299 - (view) Author: Amaury Forgeot d'Arc (amaury.forgeotdarc) * (Python committer) Date: 2009-01-07 00:21
First write a utf-16 file with its signature:

>>> f1 = open('utf16.txt', 'w', encoding='utf-16')
>>> f1.write('0123456789')
>>> f1.close()

Then read it twice:

>>> f2 = open('utf16.txt', 'r', encoding='utf-16')
>>> print('read1', ascii(f2.read()))
read1 '0123456789'
>>> f2.seek(0)
0
>>> print('read2', ascii(f2.read()))
read2 '\ufeff0123456789'

The second read returns the BOM!
This is because the zero in seek(0) is a "cookie" which contains both the position 
and the decoder state. Unfortunately, state=0 means 'endianness has been determined: 
native order'.

maybe a suggestion: handle seek(0) as a special value which calls decoder.reset().
The patch implement this idea.
msg79325 - (view) Author: STINNER Victor (vstinner) * (Python committer) Date: 2009-01-07 11:46
> This is because the zero in seek(0) is a "cookie" 
> which contains both the position and the decoder state. 
> Unfortunately, state=0 means 'endianness has been determined:
> native order'.

The problem is maybe that TextIOWrapper._pack_cookie() can create a 
cookie=0. Example to create a non-null value, replace:
    def _pack_cookie(self, position, ...):
        return (position | (dec_flags<<64) | ...
    def _unpack_cookie(self, bigint):
        rest, position = divmod(bigint, 1<<64)
        ...
by
    def _pack_cookie(self, position, ...):
        return (1 | (position<<1) | (dec_flags<<65) | ...
    def _unpack_cookie(self, bigint):
        if not (bigint & 1):
           raise ValueError("invalid cookie")
        bigint >>= 1
        rest, position = divmod(bigint, 1<<64)
        ...

Why the cookie is an integer and not an object with attributes?
msg79326 - (view) Author: Amaury Forgeot d'Arc (amaury.forgeotdarc) * (Python committer) Date: 2009-01-07 12:03
> The problem is maybe that TextIOWrapper._pack_cookie() 
> can create a cookie=0

But only when position==0.
And in this case, at the beginning of the stream, it makes sense to
reset everything to its initial value: zero for the various counts, and
call decoder.reset()
msg79330 - (view) Author: Antoine Pitrou (pitrou) * (Python committer) Date: 2009-01-07 12:59
Well, there are other problems with utf-16, e.g. when opening an
existing file for appending, the BOM is written again:

>>> f = open('utf16.txt', 'w', encoding='utf-16')
>>> f.write('abc')
3
>>> f.close()
>>> f = open('utf16.txt', 'a', encoding='utf-16')
>>> f.write('def')
3
>>> f.close()
>>> open('utf16.txt', 'r', encoding='utf-16').read()
'abc\ufeffdef'


Who said TextIOWrapper was sane? :-o
msg79410 - (view) Author: Marc-Andre Lemburg (lemburg) * (Python committer) Date: 2009-01-08 13:50
On 2009-01-07 01:21, Amaury Forgeot d'Arc wrote:
> First write a utf-16 file with its signature:
> 
>>>> f1 = open('utf16.txt', 'w', encoding='utf-16')
>>>> f1.write('0123456789')
>>>> f1.close()
> 
> Then read it twice:
> 
>>>> f2 = open('utf16.txt', 'r', encoding='utf-16')
>>>> print('read1', ascii(f2.read()))
> read1 '0123456789'
>>>> f2.seek(0)
> 0
>>>> print('read2', ascii(f2.read()))
> read2 '\ufeff0123456789'
> 
> The second read returns the BOM!
> This is because the zero in seek(0) is a "cookie" which contains both the position 
> and the decoder state. Unfortunately, state=0 means 'endianness has been determined: 
> native order'.
> 
> maybe a suggestion: handle seek(0) as a special value which calls decoder.reset().
> The patch implement this idea.

This is a problem with the utf_16.py codec, not the io layer.
Opening a file in append mode is something that the io layer
would have to handle, since the codec doesn't know anything about
the underlying file mode.

Using .reset() will not help. The code for the StreamReader
and StreamWriter in utf_16.py will have to be modified to undo
the adjustment of the .encode() and .decode() method after using
.seek(0).

Note that there's also the case .seek(1) - I guess this must
be considered as resulting in undefined behavior.
msg80211 - (view) Author: Antoine Pitrou (pitrou) * (Python committer) Date: 2009-01-19 21:27
I support Amaury's suggestion (actually I implemented it in the io-c
branch). Resetting the decoder when seeking to the beginning of the
stream is a reasonable way to deal with those incremental decoders for
which the start state is something else than (b"", 0).

(and, you're right, opening in append mode is a different problem...)
msg80222 - (view) Author: STINNER Victor (vstinner) * (Python committer) Date: 2009-01-19 23:25
I opened a different issue (#5006) for the duplicate BOM in append 
mode.
msg83141 - (view) Author: Benjamin Peterson (benjamin.peterson) * (Python committer) Date: 2009-03-04 21:36
This has been fixed by the io-c branch merge.
msg83167 - (view) Author: STINNER Victor (vstinner) * (Python committer) Date: 2009-03-05 00:24
> This has been fixed by the io-c branch merge.

Can you at least include the patch to test_io.py from amaury's patch?

And why not fixing the Python version of the io module (i'm not sure 
of the new name: _pyio?) since we have a working patch?
msg83173 - (view) Author: Benjamin Peterson (benjamin.peterson) * (Python committer) Date: 2009-03-05 00:42
Ah, I forgot this wasn't applied to the Python implementation. Fixed in
r70184.
msg83176 - (view) Author: STINNER Victor (vstinner) * (Python committer) Date: 2009-03-05 01:00
@benjamin: ok, great.
History
Date User Action Args
2022-04-11 14:56:43adminsetgithub: 49112
2009-03-05 01:00:49vstinnersetmessages: + msg83176
2009-03-05 00:42:45benjamin.petersonsetmessages: + msg83173
2009-03-05 00:24:46vstinnersetmessages: + msg83167
2009-03-04 21:36:57benjamin.petersonsetstatus: open -> closed
nosy: + benjamin.peterson
resolution: fixed
messages: + msg83141
2009-02-28 17:25:56benjamin.petersonlinkissue4565 dependencies
2009-01-19 23:25:00vstinnersetmessages: + msg80222
2009-01-19 21:27:41pitrousetmessages: + msg80211
2009-01-08 13:50:50lemburgsetnosy: + lemburg
messages: + msg79410
2009-01-07 12:59:00pitrousetnosy: + pitrou
messages: + msg79330
2009-01-07 12:03:28amaury.forgeotdarcsetmessages: + msg79326
2009-01-07 11:46:50vstinnersetmessages: + msg79325
2009-01-07 09:23:22vstinnersetnosy: + vstinner
2009-01-07 00:21:16amaury.forgeotdarccreate