[Python-Dev] BUG (urllib2) Authentication request header is broken on long usernames and passwords (original) (raw)

Scott Dial scott+python-dev at scottdial.com
Mon Oct 9 23:44:51 CEST 2006

The Doctor What wrote:

The problem is that base64.encodestring() adds newlines to wrap the encoded characters at the 76th column.

The encodestring is following RFC 1521 which speficies:

The output stream (encoded bytes) must be represented in lines of no
more than 76 characters each.  All line breaks or other characters
not found in Table 1 must be ignored by decoding software.

In retrospect, perhaps "{de|en}codestring" was a poor name choice. urllib2 should be calling b64encode directly.

I have submitted a patch to the tracker: [ 1574068 ] urllib2 - Fix line breaks in authorization headers.

-- Scott Dial scott at scottdial.com scodial at cs.indiana.edu

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