[kdepim-users] Attaching binary files

[Ingo Klöcker]

On Thursday 17 December 2009, bill purvis wrote:
> On Thursday 17 December 2009, Ingo Klöcker wrote:
> > On Thursday 17 December 2009, bill purvis wrote:
> > > On Wednesday 16 December 2009, Ingo Klöcker wrote:
> > > > On Wednesday 16 December 2009, bill purvis wrote:
> > > > > I've recently upgraded to 1.12.2 and today needed to email a
> > > > > couple of binary files to someone. When the selection window
> > > > > pops up I noticed that it now has an item to define the
> > > > > character encoding, but there is no entry for 'binary'. Is
> > > > > there a good reason for this? Does it actually have any
> > > > > significant effect? What is the recommendation for shipping
> > > > > binary files as attachements?
> > > >
> > > > The character encoding is meaningless for binary data. It is
> > > > only relevant for plain text files because text files usually
> > > > do not contain information about the encoding used in the text
> > > > file.
> > >
> > > Exactly! Which is why I want to know why there is no 'binary'
> > > option in list of encodings. I don't want my binary file to be
> > > 'mapped' into some other meaningless encoding. If nothing is
> > > going to happen what is the point of providing this option?
> >
> > I suppose you are referring to the file selection dialog. The
> > option is provided in case you select a text file as attachment. If
> > you attach a binary file then the selected encoding is ignored.
> >
> >
> > Regards,
> > Ingo
>
> I'm sorry - I have to point out that there is no such distinction. A
> file is a file. It's only when you come to make use of the file that
> the distinction has any meaning. Some of my 'binary' files are
> actually text files, but in an obsolete 5-bit encoding used by
> 1960-vintage computers. This discussion is getting a bit deep, and I
> have been told that my binary files got there OK, so it's also
> academic, but I'd like to know under what circumstances is this
> encoding used?

It is used for attachments that are of MIME type text/*. You can find 
the details in RFC 2045 (http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2045.html). Look 
for "charset" and "character set".


> I still think it would be helpful if there was a 'binary' option in
> the list of encodings just to reassure awkward people like me....

:-)

Feel free to submit a feature request via http://bugs.kde.org.


Regards,
Ingo
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