Re: Fw: [saml-dev] Question about the base64 encoding in Browser/POST profile

Good Question.

When you decode the B64, the prolog of the XML document which defines the
encoding should be in ASCII.  This will allow you to get the underlying
encoding of the decoded B64.

Regards,
Abraham
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Walker" <>
To: "Abe Kang" <>; <>
Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2003 2:51 AM
Subject: Re: Fw: [saml-dev] Question about the base64 encoding in
Browser/POST profile


> How would you specify the encoding of the decoded B64?  When you unpack
the B64 it could be anything from UTF8 to binary, couldn't it? or is this
even necessary?
>
> -d
> -------Original Message-------
> From: Abe Kang <>
> Sent: 03/19/03 12:12 AM
> To: 
> Subject: Fw: [saml-dev] Question about the base64 encoding in Browser/POST
profile
>
> >
> >
>
>
>  Hi Scott,
>
>     If you look at the output of BASE64 encoding, the only characters
> present
>  are ASCII characters so the encoding doesn't matter.  All of the major
>  encoding standards (UTF8, ISO859-x, CP125x overlap in their mapping of
> ASCII
>  characters.
>
>     The thing you have to be careful of is the different encoding of HTML
>  that is used between asserting and relying parties.
>
> --Abraham
> >
> > ----- Original Message ----- 
> > From: "Scott Cantor" <>
> > To: "'Abe Kang'" <>;
> > <>
> > Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2003 5:49 AM
> > Subject: RE: [saml-dev] Question about the base64 encoding in
> Browser/POST
> > profile
> >
> >
> > > > The encoding of HTML pages between two parties needs to be
> > > > specified before any data is transfered betwen them.  The
> > > > encoding of HTML pages is determined at the server.
> > >
> > > That's the part I do understand. ;-)
> > >
> > > The questions I have are about base64 and whether any of that is
> affected
> > by character encoding. I believe that's the question that
> > > was raised.
> > >
> > > -- Scott
> > >
> >
>
> >