The Last Sysadmin Prayer: Discussion Returns to Wrap and Base64 World

[Angel Bosch <abosch@cilma.net>]

Hi,


I'm struggling with a new CentOS6 installation and turns out that mozldap tools aren't packaged anymore and all my scripts scream out loud because wraping and base64 encoding.

I've been reading lots of old petitions of adding wrapping and encoding, testing patches and trying to understand denials.

Without being a (truly) developer the only reason I can understand about not implementing this is complexity and lack of time/resources, but seems that some devs already sended patches for those modifications.

So I'm really lost: why could be wrong adding a feature that is asked again and again and will help lot of sysadmins make their life better?

I know about pipes and string manipulation, but why refusing a non default option that don't break anything?

This is specially dramatic for base64 manipulation. mozldap has(had?) a parameter (-e) that "minimize base-64 encoding of values", I don't really know how does it determines if a value should be decoded or not, but it Just Works! 
In my script-ldap-world i just want to display names, surnames and some description with accents (Ã, Ã,...) and some catalan letter (Ã). And that's the reason I use decoding 99.99% of times. No photos, blobs or any other exotic embeded object.


So please, I mean PLEASE!

Could you add a non wrapping and a decoding option to ldap tools?


I can't pay my mortage and world if falling down, but I see the light and the end of some patches.

abosch