[whatwg] API for encoding/decoding ArrayBuffers into text

[Jonas Sicking]

On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 3:58 PM, Tab Atkins Jr. <jackalmage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 3:49 PM, Jonas Sicking <jonas at sicking.cc> wrote:
>> Hi All,
>>
>> Something that has come up a couple of times with content authors
>> lately has been the desire to convert an ArrayBuffer (or part thereof)
>> into a decoded string. Similarly being able to encode a string into an
>> ArrayBuffer (or part thereof).
>>
>> Something as simple as
>>
>> DOMString decode(ArrayBufferView source, DOMString encoding);
>> ArrayBufferView encode(DOMString source, DOMString encoding,
>> [optional] ArrayBufferView destination);
>>
>> would go a very long way. The question is where to stick these
>> functions. Internationalization doesn't have a obvious object we can
>> hang functions off of (unlike, for example crypto), and the above
>> names are much too generic to turn into global functions.
>>
>> Ideas/opinions/bikesheds?
>
> Python3 just defines str.encode and bytes.decode.  Can we not do this
> with String.encode and ArrayBuffer.decode?

Unfortunately I suspect getting anything added on the String object
will take a few years given that it's too late to get into ES6 (and in
any case I suspect adding ArrayBuffer dependencies to ES6 would be
controversial).

/ Jonas