Rails core - Jul 2007 - Receiving a request whose body ends will a null byte

Hi,

I''ve been working on a problem we''ve been having with our app.
In
essence we have a controller that receives a blob of binary data (as  
a raw post) and processes it (this data happens to be a marshaled  
ruby object but that''s not relevant here). The problem was that  
occasionally the last byte of the post body was going missing. I  
tracked it down to the following method in action_controller/cgi_ext/ 
raw_post_data_fix:

def read_body(content_length)
     stdinput.binmode if stdinput.respond_to?(:binmode)
     content = stdinput.read(content_length) || ''''
     # Fix for Safari Ajax postings that always append \000
     content.chop! if content[-1] == 0
     content.gsub!(/&_=$/, '''')
     env_table[''RAW_POST_DATA''] = content.freeze
end

I don''t know the history behind the  truncation of the last byte if  
it is nil, but surely there has to be a better way to do this?

Fred

On Fri, Jul 06, 2007 at 11:29:40AM +0100, Frederick Cheung
wrote:
> occasionally the last byte of the post body was going missing. I  
> tracked it down to the following method in action_controller/cgi_ext/ 
> raw_post_data_fix:
> 
> def read_body(content_length)
>     stdinput.binmode if stdinput.respond_to?(:binmode)
>     content = stdinput.read(content_length) || ''''
>     # Fix for Safari Ajax postings that always append \000
>     content.chop! if content[-1] == 0
>     content.gsub!(/&_=$/, '''')
>     env_table[''RAW_POST_DATA''] = content.freeze
> end
> 
> I don''t know the history behind the  truncation of the last byte
if
> it is nil, but surely there has to be a better way to do this?
The comment at least gives a bit of context -- that Safari is broken, and
this is a workaround for it.

I''ve done a bit of sleuthing, though, and I can''t find this
code in Edge. It
is present in 1.2.3, but it''s since been removed by the look of it. 
Bug
#918 is related to this code a bit, but isn''t the cause of
it''s original
inclusion.  Since the entire raw_post_data_fix.rb file is gone, I''d say
that
a fair amount of refactoring has gone into that part of the code since the
release of 1.2.3.  I suspect that going to Edge might be easier than trying
to retrofit whatever improved fix has been made.

- Matt

-- 
"The day when Hurd is so common that we want to emulate its braindamages is
not going to be in my life-time, I suspect."
		-- Linus Torvalds

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On 6 Jul 2007, at 12:29, Matthew Palmer wrote:
>
> On Fri, Jul 06, 2007 at 11:29:40AM +0100, Frederick Cheung wrote:
>> occasionally the last byte of the post body was going missing. I
>> tracked it down to the following method in action_controller/cgi_ext/
>> raw_post_data_fix:
>>
>> def read_body(content_length)
>>     stdinput.binmode if stdinput.respond_to?(:binmode)
>>     content = stdinput.read(content_length) || ''''
>>     # Fix for Safari Ajax postings that always append \000
>>     content.chop! if content[-1] == 0
>>     content.gsub!(/&_=$/, '''')
>>     env_table[''RAW_POST_DATA''] = content.freeze
>> end
>>
>> I don''t know the history behind the  truncation of the last
byte if
>> it is nil, but surely there has to be a better way to do this?
>
> The comment at least gives a bit of context -- that Safari is  
> broken, and
> this is a workaround for it.
>
> I''ve done a bit of sleuthing, though, and I can''t find
this code in
> Edge. It
> is present in 1.2.3, but it''s since been removed by the look of  
> it.  Bug
> #918 is related to this code a bit, but isn''t the cause of
it''s
> original
> inclusion.  Since the entire raw_post_data_fix.rb file is gone,
I''d
> say that
> a fair amount of refactoring has gone into that part of the code  
> since the
> release of 1.2.3.  I suspect that going to Edge might be easier  
> than trying
> to retrofit whatever improved fix has been made.
>
I can''t see any trace of it in edge either (or even a comment  
explaining a similar fix).
A cursory inspection with tcpdump and a current version of Safari  
suggests it is no longer a problem (According to the changelog the  
original fix dates back to 2005) and so perhaps this was just removed  
because affected versions of Safari are effectively dead?

Fred



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> I can''t see any trace of it in edge either (or even a comment
> explaining a similar fix).
> A cursory inspection with tcpdump and a current version of Safari
> suggests it is no longer a problem (According to the changelog the
> original fix dates back to 2005) and so perhaps this was just removed
> because affected versions of Safari are effectively dead?
I''ve yet to see strange bugs on any of my ajax-using-edge-apps,  so
perhaps it''s unneeded going forward.

-- 
Cheers

Koz

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