Re: 9.4. String Functions and Operators page does not document that encode adds line breaks

PG Doc comments form <noreply(at)postgresql(dot)org> writes:
> It took me a long time to discover why a base 64 encoded SHA-512 hash was 89
> characters long instead of the expected 88. The documentation does not
> mention that the encode function inserts newlines after 76 characters.
> Please make a note of this behavior.

That was done a few weeks ago in HEAD:

https://www.postgresql.org/docs/devel/functions-binarystring.html

The base64 format is that of RFC 2045 Section 6.8. As per the RFC,
encoded lines are broken at 76 characters. However instead of the MIME
CRLF end-of-line marker, only a newline is used for end-of-line. The
decode function ignores carriage-return, newline, space, and tab
characters. Otherwise, an error is raised when decode is supplied
invalid base64 data — including when trailing padding is incorrect.

> By the way, this is a very poor design decision.

So far as I can tell, that RFC's requirement for line breaks has not
been removed by any later RFC. So you're complaining to the wrong
people.

regards, tom lane