bugGNU Octave - Bugs: bug #51158, save function corrupts text /...

 
 

bug #51158: save function corrupts text / binary files when appending as binary / text respectively

Submitter:  Tasos Papastylianou <tpapastylianou>
Submitted:  Thu 01 Jun 2017 09:52:19 PM UTC
   
 
Category:  Octave Function Severity:  3 - Normal
Priority:  3 - Low Item Group:  Unexpected Error or Warning
Status:  Confirmed Assigned to:  None
Originator Name:  Tasos Papastylianou <poacheR> Open/Closed:  * Open
Release:  * 4.2.1 Operating System:  * GNU/Linux
Fixed Release:  None Planned Release:  None
* Mandatory Fields

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Sun 04 Jun 2017 03:09:47 PM UTC, comment #2: 

I agree that it would be nicer to have a warning message and stop appending, rather than corrupting the existing data file.

An easy way to check whether the file is an Octave binary data file is to look for the special pattern 'Octave' at the beginning of the file.  In an m-file, something like this would work


fid = fopen (filename, "rb");
sig = fread (fid, 6, "*uchar");
is_binary = strcmp (sig.', "Octave");


I think that may need to be converted to C++.

Rik <rik5>
Group administrator
Thu 01 Jun 2017 09:54:39 PM UTC, comment #1: 

apologies, the second line in the code slipped through, please ignore.

Tasos Papastylianou <tpapastylianou>
Thu 01 Jun 2017 09:52:19 PM UTC, original submission:  

Consider the following code:


a = 1;
save -text binfile a
save -text textfile a
save -binary binfile a
a = 2;
save -text -append binfile a
save -binary -append textfile a
clear
load textfile a
a                 % -- a =  1
load binfile a    % -- error: load: trouble reading binary file 'binfile'


On linux I could check what kind of file it is before appending, e.g.:


system('file textfile')   % -- textfile: data
system('file binfile')    % -- binfile: Octave binary data (little endian)


but obviously, this is not a portable solution.

Proposal: If save is called with the append option, it should first check that the file type specified is the same as the target, otherwise exit with an error.

Tasos Papastylianou <tpapastylianou>

 

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    Date Changed by Updated Field Previous Value => Replaced by
    2017-06-04 rik5 Priority5 - Normal 3 - Low
        StatusNone Confirmed

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