Bug 61801 HEX and Base64 function

[jmetertea]

Description

New function : Allow easy HEX and Base64 encode / Decode
_encodeDecode(string, mode,output variable) where mode is:
BASE64_ENCODE
BASE64_DECODE
HEX_ENCODE
HEX_DECODE

Motivation and Context

Bug 61801 - New function : Allow easy HEX and Base64 encode / Decode

How Has This Been Tested?

Java JUnit tests

Screenshots (if appropriate):

Types of changes

• New feature (non-breaking change which adds functionality)

Checklist:

• My code follows the code style of this project.
• I have updated the documentation accordingly.

[FSchumacher]

Most implementations of those en-/decoders, that I know of, are restricted to one direction, only. This function works in both directions, which might be a bit confusing.

Why not use base64_decode, base64_encode, hex_decode and hex_encode (or leaving out the underscore to be in sync with urldecode and urlencode.

If we really want to have one encoder/decoder, would it be better to separate this at least into two functions?

[jmetertea]

@FSchumacher The enhancement created by Philippe Mouawad
I personally think that there are many functions and we shouldn't split this to two functions.
original request: https://bz.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=61801

[vlsi]

@jmetertea ,

1. please use human-readable PR names. Current "Patch 13" is obscure.
2. please refrain from pushing more commits here until the design of the feature is agreed. The current design of a single function for both encoding and decoding would likely be never committed.

[pmouawad]

Hello,
Thanks for this PR.
Can you open discussion on dev mailing list referencing it as a proposal ?
Closing it as it won't be merged as is.

Thanks