The fields.binary type allows storing arbitrary
byte arrays, but it has been used historically
to store base64-encoded versions of the binaries.
This was partially related to the way these binary
values are serialized when transferred using the
standard XML-RPC protocol.
With the introduction of JSON-based RPC calls
alongside the 6.1 web client, these base64-encoded
binaries may now be deserialized as unicode ASCII
strings instead of 8-bit strings. That seems like
an acceptable behavior and we can simply coerce
these unicode strings to bytes strings as we know
they will be pure ASCII. Any non-ASCII unicode
value for binary field makes no sense and should
be passed as a byte string directly.
Thanks to Rui Barreiros for providing the final
hint in bug 919982 comments that lead to the
identification of this bug.
lp bug: https://launchpad.net/bugs/899794 fixed
bzr revid: odo@openerp.com-
20120222093937-quifmtsfc9gaa9ar
class binary(_column):
_type = 'binary'
_symbol_c = '%s'
- _symbol_f = lambda symb: symb and Binary(symb) or None
+
+ # Binary values may be byte strings (python 2.6 byte array), but
+ # the legacy OpenERP convention is to transfer and store binaries
+ # as base64-encoded strings. The base64 string may be provided as a
+ # unicode in some circumstances, hence the str() cast in symbol_f.
+ # This str coercion will only work for pure ASCII unicode strings,
+ # on purpose - non base64 data must be passed as a 8bit byte strings.
+ _symbol_f = lambda symb: symb and Binary(str(symb)) or None
+
_symbol_set = (_symbol_c, _symbol_f)
_symbol_get = lambda self, x: x and str(x)