Re: We need a global decision about R data in binary format, and stick to it.

[Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk>]

Bastien ROUCARIES writes ("Re: We need a global decision about R data in binary format, and stick to it."):
> Le 5 août 2013 15:42, "Paul Tagliamonte" <paultag@debian.org> a écrit :
> > IMVHO, this is the same as how we should treat images (I mean, for any
> > data format, not just this one case of a pickled object) - if the image
> > was a photo, clearly the .jpg or .png or whatever we get is the best way
> > to communicate this data, but if the image was generated off an .svg,
> > it should be distributed with it (and even rebuilt at build-time).
> 
> Could we made an exception for specially crafted image in order to exercice
> buffer oveeflow ? (I think particularly art libpng ImageMagick)

I think this is something of a red herring corner case, and not really
related to the question about R binary objects.

If the last thing that happened to the image file was that upstream
edited it with a hex editor to introduce a buffer overflow, then the
resulting binary file is the preferred form for modification (after
all, that's how the last person to do so modified it...)

Ian.