Allow binary blobs

[hannesl]

In order to safely transfer binary blobs/filtes, the API needs to use base64 encoding when appropriate. postBlob() however always uses "utf-8". So there needs to be either an additional argument in write() and postBlob() that specifies the encoding, or postBlob() needs to detect if the file is binary or not, and adjust the encoding automatically.

This little snippet seems to be able to detect binary data:

/[\x00-\x08\x0E-\x1F]/.test(data)

See http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1677644/detect-non-printable-characters-in-javascript

I'm currently dealing with similar issues in Prose: prose/prose#255

[hannesl]

Or, should the recommended approach be that implementors of the API encode the data before calling write()? I guess that would work too.

[mattpass]

@hannesl Sorry for delay in replying here, I'm helping Michael clear old issues.

Good points and a tricky one. I'd be hesitant to auto encode anything without the user being aware of it, but then I can see encoding as being useful. Probably the best solution here is to encode it before calling on the API. However if you do want to put in a pull request re encoding I'd look at it, but would have to be as an optional argument.

[aendra-rininsland]

@mattpass Was this ever dealt with? There seems to be some binary file handling in postBlob, which I'm looking at briefly due to #149.

[mattpass]

@Aendrew Nope, was awaiting a pull request and going to check that out. Nothing submitted or coded by myself here.