maria-discuss team mailing list archive

[Sergei Golubchik <serg@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi, Tom!

On Jan 31, Tom Worster wrote:
> I think we're getting lost in the detail. Beyond dispute are two facts:
> 
>    1. BINARY is a valid datatype in dynamic columns.
>    2. JSON cannot represent binary data.
> 
> It follows that:
> 
>    COLUMN_JSON() cannot (correctly) represent all dynamic column values.
> 
> So I ask the question is:
> 
>     What *should* COLUMN_JSON() do when a dynamic column contains BINARY
> values?
> 
> When I file a bug report, I like to give an expected result. I don't know
> what it is in this case. Every other decent JSON encoder errors on such
> input. Is that what Maria should do?

I suppose MariaDB could either return a NULL (meaning "failed", "invalid
input", "not possible to convert to JSON") or, may be, base64 this
binary data in the output.

But base64 looks like an arbitrary choice, and it, technically, returns
something that is *not* the original binary data.

Regards,
Sergei