[erlang-questions] binary_to_term

[Claes Wikstrom]

Michael Radford wrote:
> Kostis Sagonas writes:
>> You are so kind.  I personally think it is terrible!
>>

I agree with Kostis here,

>> The issue has been discussed before, both in meetings and in this 
>> mailing list, and my understanding is that there are actually 
>> applications out there which depend on this "feature" (i.e., 
>> binary_to_term/1 succeeding when there is a prefix of the binary which 
>> can be turned into some Erlang term).
> 

Hmm, I have a real hard time believing that there indeed are
such applications. All apps that use binary_to_term in
some way or an other either use sockets with {packet, X}
or if they write terms to disk, make up their own frames.

So - IMHO - changing this will not break anything. What's
even more irritating here - is that this issue is probably
originally my fault :-(

> I personally don't see what's so terrible about this behavior.
> 

All apps that store or receive binaries that are later to be
turned into terms MUST use some framing. Thus any apps that
break here are already broken - someway - since they're discarding
data.

I know that this ain't no voting both - but regardless - I cast
my vote !! Like Obama, I vote for Change.

/klacke