[Oberon] Re: %XX/W3C-encoding not applicable to ISP login

[easlab at absamail.co.za]

--- easlab at absamail.co.za wrote:

> > No ! The ISP doesn't even see "%40".
> > So the very concept of 'escaping' [outside of the
> > n-o client] is inapplicable.
> > The 'translation/disguise' is only internal to n-o.
> > The whole mention of 'escaping' is inappropriate
> > and misleading.  

John M. Drake wrote:-

> I not sure you're understanding me.
> 
> Ok, I'll try and explain again.
> 
> Step 1: Change NetSystem.SetUser to "unescape" any
> time it sees "%".
> 
> Step 2: Use the "Escape" program to replace all
> occurences of @ with %40.
> 
> So then, NetSystem.SetUser will get the string with
> "%40" in it, but then make it a string with "@" in
> it BEFORE PPP sends it to your ISP.
> 
Yes exactly: that's why I wrote ' The ISP doesn't even see "%40".  '

And usually %XX/W3C-ENcoding would be DEcoded by some
application on the other side of the world -- as James Carlson
pointed out.   

You proposed a gearbox/translator which can 'hide' any 
character, [except "%"] and could pretend to fix the problem.
I've used a band-aid/dirty-hack to 'hide' "@" and deliberately
want to emphasise that nothing is fixed until the RFC is satisfied.

I'm thinking that if we want to still use the 'read the tokens off a string'
approach, we could use white-chars as the 'token terminators',
instead of ":" and "@".  Apparently linux does this.
Perhaps  userID & password may not contain white-chars ?

> Alternatively you can change the code of PPP
> to use another mechanism for setting the user
> name and password.  I can't help you there as
> I don't use the NO PPP.  But perhaps that's
> the best longterm solution.
> 
Yes, OK.  But the PPP needs more fixes: the FSM apparently
locks in bad-state(s) instead of resetting, for unexpected events.

Translating James Carlson's published C-code implementation
might be good ?  BTW a tool-set to *assist* C to Oberon code 
translation would be of great value to the Oberon community. 

> > Thanks, it's a bit more complicated:
> > Ver-2001 was patched 'from the beginning'.
> > Now I need to somethimes email from a portable
> > machine, and I don't want to repartition my
> > note-book.
> > So I want to use my DOSBased V2.3.6. n-o, which has
> > a 
> > different syntax to Ver-2001 re. ppp arguments.
> 
> So what syntax does DOSBased NO use for setting
> the user id and password?
> 
v2.3.3 StandAlone's documentation reads:
NetSystem.SetUser dialup:<username>@DIAL ~

As does V2.3.6 DOSbased's documentation.

> > Your mention of "NetSystem.SetUser" helped me go
> > directly
> > to my previous patch, and applying it to V2.3.2
> > [which source
> > I have]  which enabled login for DOSBased V2.3.6.
> > NewsArticles fetch tested OK.
> 
> Do you have the source for DOSBased NO?
> 
Only some; so I used StandAlone Ver 2.3.2 which I patched
to transform "$" to "@", which allowed me to login, but
there's still a problem with the email password.

I'm exhaused with/by the whole matter.

== Chris Glur.