Multiple field indexes

encode base64



Jeff,

I would not expect such a violent attack and blackmailing, but certainly you
have the right to express your feelings. I do not think I deserved it. I
believe I gave the community more programming techniques and tricks than
most of others.

As for the dynamic function calls - you are mistaken - I published the first
method for dynamic function execution using filters as soon as I found it
and before I wrote Vladdy. I did not bother publishing the performance
improvement with the assembler hack, since firstly I had no feedback or sign
of interest after publishing the first method, then the functionality is
identical, and lastly it required modifying the assembler, hence it was not
really a "clean" solution.

Am I creating a market advantage? Hmm, yes, probably yes, though I believe
everybody does it. I guess you are also not going to publish all your source
code. I've spent several days of experimenting and testing, before I found
the right way and managed to get the binary reading working. Although I love
to share various tricks with the community, this one was not easy to find,
and the effort has to pay back first.

Maybe, if you had asked and insisted politely without offences, I could had
changed my mind and published the trick, but I definitely won't do it under
such blackmailing pressure.

Sorry for that,

Ivo
http://mivo.truxoft.com



-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Huber - Listmail


Ivo,

Since I, or any other developer that has released one or more
Miva Merchant modules could reasonably be considered your
"competitor", and since most of the people in that group, or I
assume most of them, could already easily release a Miva Merchant
software solution that attached files to email very easily and
thus compete with MmATTACH if we wanted to, I think it is a bad
excuse not to share the coding technique on this list.

This list has always been a place where people with a shared
interest for or in some cases a love of the Miva script language
can share experiences and work together to improve the ability of
all of use using the language.

There are a significant number of people that make a lot of money
selling Miva Merchant modules that learned a lot about how to
program from Myself and the other "core" members of this list and
they are our "competitors" now in one sense or another. I always
considered you one of the "core" members because I never saw you
hold back information based on some stupid market advantage
excuse, and because I thought that you, like many others, had a
fondness for the language that often goes beyond it's commercial
worth.

If you aren't going to share a technique of using the language
then it seems to me that maybe you are no longer really "One of
us". Maybe you have succumbed to the "dark side" and become "one
of them", whoever "them" is.

Many people who use Miva script only have Miva script as a
scripting option, they can't use other means, and for them, who
are not your "competitors" and who are the people who used to be
the only type of people on this list, knowing that technique
might be very nice.

The fact that you don't want to share it with the community
because of some supposed, and I believe non existent, market
advantage. makes me think less of you than I used to.

Especially when I combine this current event with the reaction
you had when Darren Ehlers posted his assembler file technique to
allow dynamic function calls and you quickly jumped in and said
that was an old obvious technique you had been using for a long
time with the Vladdy engine, and yet you had never seen fit to
publish the technique on this list. I guess that was another
market advantage that you didn't want to give up, and yet you
sure wanted to jump in and claim credit for the technique after
the fact.

I wonder if there are more of you than I realize and maybe that
is why we (Meaning Jeff Collins, myself, and a few others) found
it so hard to get support for the Miva script Open source
project.

When people have asked questions about things I have never
hesitated to answer and even provide source code, just because
what we were doing was a technique used in a Miva Merchant
module.

I am saddened by your attitude Ivo, adn even though it may not
mean anythign to you I am also dissapointed in you.

I hope you will see the error of your ways and "come back into
the light".

I shouldn't send this to the list because I am not in a calm and
rational frame of mind, but I usually avoid posting when I am
annoyed and upset for fear that I will say something I will
regret later.

In this case I don't care.

- Jeff Huber
President 4TheBest eCommerce Solutions
http://4TheBest.com
[email protected]
Office: 760-742-1469
Cell: 760-445-8454





-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ivo Truxa
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 4:04 PM
To: 'Miva Users List'
Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64


Yes, it _is_ possible to achieve it in plain Miva Script.
Unfortunately, I
cannot disclose the exact way, because one of my commercial
products is
based on the trick (MmATTACH) and disclosing it would endanger
its market
position. The trick is not quite simple; it uses secondary
effects of
unexpected functions, but it works fine.

In case of need I could provide a compiled library containing the
function,
though. Better told, I could disclose the way how to call the
function from
the MmATTACH module (after adjusting it little bit), when
installed on the
system.

Just please note that the encoding is not very fast and not well
suitable
for files bigger than few hundreds of kilobytes. Whenever
possible, using an
external encoder like MimeConv 2 freely available on my website
is a much
faster solution.

Ivo
http://mivo.truxoft.com




-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Huber - Listmail


Ahh, but if you can get the file into a string then you can use
it :)

We actually got very close to an algorithm that would let us
GUESS at the file contents enough that we could suck up files
using MvIMPORT and the encode them and manipulate them.

In fact we have successfully done it with a number of files but
it is not stable because if the guesses are wrong then everything
falls apart badly.

The problem of course is rooted in the fact that MvIMPORT is
specifically intended to import text files that are considered
one record per line, and a line is determined by the existence of
a LF, CR, or CRLF, which means that Miva eats some of the binary
data and you can't be sure which it eats.

I am holding out hope that we will get a way to read files in a
more raw manner into variables sometime after 5.o of Empresa is
released, and if we don't then we will be building and releasing
a file system function library for Miva Empresa VM because we
have some things planned for early next year that we HAVE to have
that functionality for and I have reasons why I want it all done
as Miva script rather than using PHP, Perl, C, etc.

- Jeff Huber
President 4TheBest eCommerce Solutions
http://4TheBest.com
[email protected]
Office: 760-742-1469
Cell: 760-445-8454



-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
[email protected]
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 2:09 PM
To: 'Claudiu Bischoff'; Miva Users List
Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64


Hi,
I was under the impression that crypto_base64_encode function
only worked on
strings-not files. How exactly do you use the function? -
crypto_base64_encode(l.image_url)???

Bill M.

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf
Of Claudiu Bischoff
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 9:47 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [meu] encode base64


Hi all,

I'm trying to encode some images in my automated e-mails (due to
the new
SP2 I cannot use web hosted images in my multimedia e-mails
anymore) and I
want to make this happen with the new miva crypto_base64_encode
function.
The only problem I have is that I don't have the correct result.
I'm
importing the image and encoding it to insert it in my multipart
e-mail
body. All is fine less the encoded result. I have encoded the
same image
with another software and I noticed that the begining of the
encrypted
result is ok.. but after a few characters my miva result change..

Miva encoded image result :
/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQEAYABgAAD/2wBDAAgGBgcGBQgHBwcJCQg=DBQ=DAsLDBkSE
w8UHRofHh0a
HBw=GDIhHCEyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMj IyMjIyMjIyMjIyM
jIyMjIyMjIy
Mv/AABEIAF8AXQMBIgACEQEDEQH/xAAfAAABBQEBAQEBAQAAAAAAAAAAAQI ..
etc .. etc

VB software encoded image result :
/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQEAYABgAAD/2wBDAAgGBgcGBQgHBwcJCQgKDBQNDAsLDBkSE
w8UHRofHh0a
HBwgJC4nICIsIxwcKDcpLDAxNDQ0Hyc5PTgyPC4zNDL/2wBDAQkJCQwLDBgNDRgyI
RwhMjIyMjIy
MjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMj IyMjIyMjL/wA ..
etc .. etc

The VB result is working well with Outlook and other e-mail
clients, but..
the miva one is not working at all (I have a broken image in the
e-mail
body)

Does anybody is aware of some encoding problems with the
crypto_base64_encode(data) function?

PS: I already looked on the Ivo website encoding solution but I
need a 100%
mivascript solution ( if there is one .. :s )

Thanks everybody
Claudiu

encode base64



Thanks Jeff.. Yes indeed I finally used a php function to get my encoded
image. I paste the code here if someone have the same problem I had:

<?php
$handle = fopen($source_file,'rb');
$file_content = fread($handle,filesize($source_file));
fclose($handle);
$encoded = chunk_split(base64_encode($file_content));
echo $encoded;
?>

All you have to do is to put this function in a file and call it from your
miva script (ex: http://domain.com/fie.php?source_file=your_image.jpg )

Best regards,
Claudiu

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Huber - Listmail [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: mardi 12 octobre 2004 23:57
To: 'Claudiu Bischoff'; [email protected]
Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64


You can't encode them with Miva script unless you have the binary
data in the variable, and you can't get the binary data into the
variable by using an import because the import makes assumptions
about the data and strips out characters or modifies them based
on those assumptions.

When we need to do this sort of things, we store the already
encoded version of the image as base64 in a file, or in a
database memo field and then we use the
crypto_base64_decode(data) in combination with the header control
functions to stream out the image.

So, while you can get the encode binary data to stream out of
Miva scripts as binary data, thus delivering a binary image, PDF,
etc. You can't use native Miva script to encode the file
contents.

Sorry.

- Jeff Huber
President 4TheBest eCommerce Solutions
http://4TheBest.com
[email protected]
Office: 760-742-1469
Cell: 760-445-8454



-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Claudiu Bischoff
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 7:47 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [meu] encode base64


Hi all,

I'm trying to encode some images in my automated e-mails (due to
the new
SP2 I cannot use web hosted images in my multimedia e-mails
anymore) and I
want to make this happen with the new miva crypto_base64_encode
function.
The only problem I have is that I don't have the correct result.
I'm
importing the image and encoding it to insert it in my multipart
e-mail
body. All is fine less the encoded result. I have encoded the
same image
with another software and I noticed that the begining of the
encrypted
result is ok.. but after a few characters my miva result change..

Miva encoded image result :
/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQEAYABgAAD/2wBDAAgGBgcGBQgHBwcJCQg=DBQ=DAsLDBkSE
w8UHRofHh0a
HBw=GDIhHCEyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMj IyMjIyMjIyMjIyM
jIyMjIyMjIy
Mv/AABEIAF8AXQMBIgACEQEDEQH/xAAfAAABBQEBAQEBAQAAAAAAAAAAAQI ..
etc .. etc

VB software encoded image result :
/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQEAYABgAAD/2wBDAAgGBgcGBQgHBwcJCQgKDBQNDAsLDBkSE
w8UHRofHh0a
HBwgJC4nICIsIxwcKDcpLDAxNDQ0Hyc5PTgyPC4zNDL/2wBDAQkJCQwLDBgNDRgyI
RwhMjIyMjIy
MjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMj IyMjIyMjL/wA ..
etc .. etc

The VB result is working well with Outlook and other e-mail
clients, but..
the miva one is not working at all (I have a broken image in the
e-mail
body)

Does anybody is aware of some encoding problems with the
crypto_base64_encode(data) function?

PS: I already looked on the Ivo website encoding solution but I
need a 100%
mivascript solution ( if there is one .. :s )

Thanks everybody
Claudiu

encode base64



It's Ivo's code and he's not under any obligation to disclose it. Nobody
should think less of him for not giving away his software.

>I shouldn't send this to the list because I am not in a calm and
>rational frame of mind, but I usually avoid posting when I am
>annoyed and upset for fear that I will say something I will
>regret later.

Jeff, I regret to say, take your own advice.

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf
Of Ivo Truxa
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 8:42 PM
To: 'Miva Users List'
Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64

Jeff,

I would not expect such a violent attack and blackmailing, but certainly you
have the right to express your feelings. I do not think I deserved it. I
believe I gave the community more programming techniques and tricks than
most of others.

As for the dynamic function calls - you are mistaken - I published the first
method for dynamic function execution using filters as soon as I found it
and before I wrote Vladdy. I did not bother publishing the performance
improvement with the assembler hack, since firstly I had no feedback or sign
of interest after publishing the first method, then the functionality is
identical, and lastly it required modifying the assembler, hence it was not
really a "clean" solution.

Am I creating a market advantage? Hmm, yes, probably yes, though I believe
everybody does it. I guess you are also not going to publish all your source
code. I've spent several days of experimenting and testing, before I found
the right way and managed to get the binary reading working. Although I love
to share various tricks with the community, this one was not easy to find,
and the effort has to pay back first.

Maybe, if you had asked and insisted politely without offences, I could had
changed my mind and published the trick, but I definitely won't do it under
such blackmailing pressure.

Sorry for that,

Ivo
http://mivo.truxoft.com



-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Huber - Listmail


Ivo,

Since I, or any other developer that has released one or more
Miva Merchant modules could reasonably be considered your
"competitor", and since most of the people in that group, or I
assume most of them, could already easily release a Miva Merchant
software solution that attached files to email very easily and
thus compete with MmATTACH if we wanted to, I think it is a bad
excuse not to share the coding technique on this list.

This list has always been a place where people with a shared
interest for or in some cases a love of the Miva script language
can share experiences and work together to improve the ability of
all of use using the language.

There are a significant number of people that make a lot of money
selling Miva Merchant modules that learned a lot about how to
program from Myself and the other "core" members of this list and
they are our "competitors" now in one sense or another. I always
considered you one of the "core" members because I never saw you
hold back information based on some stupid market advantage
excuse, and because I thought that you, like many others, had a
fondness for the language that often goes beyond it's commercial
worth.

If you aren't going to share a technique of using the language
then it seems to me that maybe you are no longer really "One of
us". Maybe you have succumbed to the "dark side" and become "one
of them", whoever "them" is.

Many people who use Miva script only have Miva script as a
scripting option, they can't use other means, and for them, who
are not your "competitors" and who are the people who used to be
the only type of people on this list, knowing that technique
might be very nice.

The fact that you don't want to share it with the community
because of some supposed, and I believe non existent, market
advantage. makes me think less of you than I used to.

Especially when I combine this current event with the reaction
you had when Darren Ehlers posted his assembler file technique to
allow dynamic function calls and you quickly jumped in and said
that was an old obvious technique you had been using for a long
time with the Vladdy engine, and yet you had never seen fit to
publish the technique on this list. I guess that was another
market advantage that you didn't want to give up, and yet you
sure wanted to jump in and claim credit for the technique after
the fact.

I wonder if there are more of you than I realize and maybe that
is why we (Meaning Jeff Collins, myself, and a few others) found
it so hard to get support for the Miva script Open source
project.

When people have asked questions about things I have never
hesitated to answer and even provide source code, just because
what we were doing was a technique used in a Miva Merchant
module.

I am saddened by your attitude Ivo, adn even though it may not
mean anythign to you I am also dissapointed in you.

I hope you will see the error of your ways and "come back into
the light".

I shouldn't send this to the list because I am not in a calm and
rational frame of mind, but I usually avoid posting when I am
annoyed and upset for fear that I will say something I will
regret later.

In this case I don't care.

- Jeff Huber
President 4TheBest eCommerce Solutions
http://4TheBest.com
[email protected]
Office: 760-742-1469
Cell: 760-445-8454





-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ivo Truxa
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 4:04 PM
To: 'Miva Users List'
Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64


Yes, it _is_ possible to achieve it in plain Miva Script.
Unfortunately, I
cannot disclose the exact way, because one of my commercial
products is
based on the trick (MmATTACH) and disclosing it would endanger
its market
position. The trick is not quite simple; it uses secondary
effects of
unexpected functions, but it works fine.

In case of need I could provide a compiled library containing the
function,
though. Better told, I could disclose the way how to call the
function from
the MmATTACH module (after adjusting it little bit), when
installed on the
system.

Just please note that the encoding is not very fast and not well
suitable
for files bigger than few hundreds of kilobytes. Whenever
possible, using an
external encoder like MimeConv 2 freely available on my website
is a much
faster solution.

Ivo
http://mivo.truxoft.com




-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Huber - Listmail


Ahh, but if you can get the file into a string then you can use
it :)

We actually got very close to an algorithm that would let us
GUESS at the file contents enough that we could suck up files
using MvIMPORT and the encode them and manipulate them.

In fact we have successfully done it with a number of files but
it is not stable because if the guesses are wrong then everything
falls apart badly.

The problem of course is rooted in the fact that MvIMPORT is
specifically intended to import text files that are considered
one record per line, and a line is determined by the existence of
a LF, CR, or CRLF, which means that Miva eats some of the binary
data and you can't be sure which it eats.

I am holding out hope that we will get a way to read files in a
more raw manner into variables sometime after 5.o of Empresa is
released, and if we don't then we will be building and releasing
a file system function library for Miva Empresa VM because we
have some things planned for early next year that we HAVE to have
that functionality for and I have reasons why I want it all done
as Miva script rather than using PHP, Perl, C, etc.

- Jeff Huber
President 4TheBest eCommerce Solutions
http://4TheBest.com
[email protected]
Office: 760-742-1469
Cell: 760-445-8454



-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
[email protected]
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 2:09 PM
To: 'Claudiu Bischoff'; Miva Users List
Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64


Hi,
I was under the impression that crypto_base64_encode function
only worked on
strings-not files. How exactly do you use the function? -
crypto_base64_encode(l.image_url)???

Bill M.

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf
Of Claudiu Bischoff
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 9:47 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [meu] encode base64


Hi all,

I'm trying to encode some images in my automated e-mails (due to
the new
SP2 I cannot use web hosted images in my multimedia e-mails
anymore) and I
want to make this happen with the new miva crypto_base64_encode
function.
The only problem I have is that I don't have the correct result.
I'm
importing the image and encoding it to insert it in my multipart
e-mail
body. All is fine less the encoded result. I have encoded the
same image
with another software and I noticed that the begining of the
encrypted
result is ok.. but after a few characters my miva result change..

Miva encoded image result :
/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQEAYABgAAD/2wBDAAgGBgcGBQgHBwcJCQg=DBQ=DAsLDBkSE
w8UHRofHh0a
HBw=GDIhHCEyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMj IyMjIyMjIyMjIyM
jIyMjIyMjIy
Mv/AABEIAF8AXQMBIgACEQEDEQH/xAAfAAABBQEBAQEBAQAAAAAAAAAAAQI ..
etc .. etc

VB software encoded image result :
/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQEAYABgAAD/2wBDAAgGBgcGBQgHBwcJCQgKDBQNDAsLDBkSE
w8UHRofHh0a
HBwgJC4nICIsIxwcKDcpLDAxNDQ0Hyc5PTgyPC4zNDL/2wBDAQkJCQwLDBgNDRgyI
RwhMjIyMjIy
MjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMj IyMjIyMjL/wA ..
etc .. etc

The VB result is working well with Outlook and other e-mail
clients, but..
the miva one is not working at all (I have a broken image in the
e-mail
body)

Does anybody is aware of some encoding problems with the
crypto_base64_encode(data) function?

PS: I already looked on the Ivo website encoding solution but I
need a 100%
mivascript solution ( if there is one .. :s )

Thanks everybody
Claudiu

encode base64



Whoa dude...I can't believe that what I just read was from you. No one needs to disclose
source code to anyone else regardless of the benefits to the community. The Miva Pond is
growing ever more smaller, or more accurately, there are just more fisherman on its banks,
and anyone who wants to be fishing for dinner tomorrow needs to maintain a tight reign on
their intellectual property. Its sad, but true.

-Bruce

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]On
> Behalf Of Jeff Huber - Listmail
> Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 5:23 PM
> To: 'Ivo Truxa'; 'Miva Users List'
> Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64
>
>
> Ivo,
>
> Since I, or any other developer that has released one or more
> Miva Merchant modules could reasonably be considered your
> "competitor", and since most of the people in that group, or I
> assume most of them, could already easily release a Miva Merchant
> software solution that attached files to email very easily and
> thus compete with MmATTACH if we wanted to, I think it is a bad
> excuse not to share the coding technique on this list.
>
> This list has always been a place where people with a shared
> interest for or in some cases a love of the Miva script language
> can share experiences and work together to improve the ability of
> all of use using the language.
>
> There are a significant number of people that make a lot of money
> selling Miva Merchant modules that learned a lot about how to
> program from Myself and the other "core" members of this list and
> they are our "competitors" now in one sense or another. I always
> considered you one of the "core" members because I never saw you
> hold back information based on some stupid market advantage
> excuse, and because I thought that you, like many others, had a
> fondness for the language that often goes beyond it's commercial
> worth.
>
> If you aren't going to share a technique of using the language
> then it seems to me that maybe you are no longer really "One of
> us". Maybe you have succumbed to the "dark side" and become "one
> of them", whoever "them" is.
>
> Many people who use Miva script only have Miva script as a
> scripting option, they can't use other means, and for them, who
> are not your "competitors" and who are the people who used to be
> the only type of people on this list, knowing that technique
> might be very nice.
>
> The fact that you don't want to share it with the community
> because of some supposed, and I believe non existent, market
> advantage. makes me think less of you than I used to.
>
> Especially when I combine this current event with the reaction
> you had when Darren Ehlers posted his assembler file technique to
> allow dynamic function calls and you quickly jumped in and said
> that was an old obvious technique you had been using for a long
> time with the Vladdy engine, and yet you had never seen fit to
> publish the technique on this list. I guess that was another
> market advantage that you didn't want to give up, and yet you
> sure wanted to jump in and claim credit for the technique after
> the fact.
>
> I wonder if there are more of you than I realize and maybe that
> is why we (Meaning Jeff Collins, myself, and a few others) found
> it so hard to get support for the Miva script Open source
> project.
>
> When people have asked questions about things I have never
> hesitated to answer and even provide source code, just because
> what we were doing was a technique used in a Miva Merchant
> module.
>
> I am saddened by your attitude Ivo, adn even though it may not
> mean anythign to you I am also dissapointed in you.
>
> I hope you will see the error of your ways and "come back into
> the light".
>
> I shouldn't send this to the list because I am not in a calm and
> rational frame of mind, but I usually avoid posting when I am
> annoyed and upset for fear that I will say something I will
> regret later.
>
> In this case I don't care.
>
> - Jeff Huber
> President 4TheBest eCommerce Solutions
> http://4TheBest.com
> [email protected]
> Office: 760-742-1469
> Cell: 760-445-8454
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected]
> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ivo Truxa
> Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 4:04 PM
> To: 'Miva Users List'
> Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64
>
>
> Yes, it _is_ possible to achieve it in plain Miva Script.
> Unfortunately, I
> cannot disclose the exact way, because one of my commercial
> products is
> based on the trick (MmATTACH) and disclosing it would endanger
> its market
> position. The trick is not quite simple; it uses secondary
> effects of
> unexpected functions, but it works fine.
>
> In case of need I could provide a compiled library containing the
> function,
> though. Better told, I could disclose the way how to call the
> function from
> the MmATTACH module (after adjusting it little bit), when
> installed on the
> system.
>
> Just please note that the encoding is not very fast and not well
> suitable
> for files bigger than few hundreds of kilobytes. Whenever
> possible, using an
> external encoder like MimeConv 2 freely available on my website
> is a much
> faster solution.
>
> Ivo
> http://mivo.truxoft.com
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jeff Huber - Listmail
>
>
> Ahh, but if you can get the file into a string then you can use
> it :)
>
> We actually got very close to an algorithm that would let us
> GUESS at the file contents enough that we could suck up files
> using MvIMPORT and the encode them and manipulate them.
>
> In fact we have successfully done it with a number of files but
> it is not stable because if the guesses are wrong then everything
> falls apart badly.
>
> The problem of course is rooted in the fact that MvIMPORT is
> specifically intended to import text files that are considered
> one record per line, and a line is determined by the existence of
> a LF, CR, or CRLF, which means that Miva eats some of the binary
> data and you can't be sure which it eats.
>
> I am holding out hope that we will get a way to read files in a
> more raw manner into variables sometime after 5.o of Empresa is
> released, and if we don't then we will be building and releasing
> a file system function library for Miva Empresa VM because we
> have some things planned for early next year that we HAVE to have
> that functionality for and I have reasons why I want it all done
> as Miva script rather than using PHP, Perl, C, etc.
>
> - Jeff Huber
> President 4TheBest eCommerce Solutions
> http://4TheBest.com
> [email protected]
> Office: 760-742-1469
> Cell: 760-445-8454
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected]
> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
> [email protected]
> Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 2:09 PM
> To: 'Claudiu Bischoff'; Miva Users List
> Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64
>
>
> Hi,
> I was under the impression that crypto_base64_encode function
> only worked on
> strings-not files. How exactly do you use the function? -
> crypto_base64_encode(l.image_url)???
>
> Bill M.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected]
> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf
> Of Claudiu Bischoff
> Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 9:47 AM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: [meu] encode base64
>
>
> Hi all,
>
> I'm trying to encode some images in my automated e-mails (due to
> the new
> SP2 I cannot use web hosted images in my multimedia e-mails
> anymore) and I
> want to make this happen with the new miva crypto_base64_encode
> function.
> The only problem I have is that I don't have the correct result.
> I'm
> importing the image and encoding it to insert it in my multipart
> e-mail
> body. All is fine less the encoded result. I have encoded the
> same image
> with another software and I noticed that the begining of the
> encrypted
> result is ok.. but after a few characters my miva result change..
>
> Miva encoded image result :
> /9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQEAYABgAAD/2wBDAAgGBgcGBQgHBwcJCQg=DBQ=DAsLDBkSE
> w8UHRofHh0a
> HBw=GDIhHCEyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMj IyMjIyMjIyMjIyM
> jIyMjIyMjIy
> Mv/AABEIAF8AXQMBIgACEQEDEQH/xAAfAAABBQEBAQEBAQAAAAAAAAAAAQI ..
> etc .. etc
>
> VB software encoded image result :
> /9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQEAYABgAAD/2wBDAAgGBgcGBQgHBwcJCQgKDBQNDAsLDBkSE
> w8UHRofHh0a
> HBwgJC4nICIsIxwcKDcpLDAxNDQ0Hyc5PTgyPC4zNDL/2wBDAQkJCQwLDBgNDRgyI
> RwhMjIyMjIy
> MjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMj IyMjIyMjL/wA ..
> etc .. etc
>
> The VB result is working well with Outlook and other e-mail
> clients, but..
> the miva one is not working at all (I have a broken image in the
> e-mail
> body)
>
> Does anybody is aware of some encoding problems with the
> crypto_base64_encode(data) function?
>
> PS: I already looked on the Ivo website encoding solution but I
> need a 100%
> mivascript solution ( if there is one .. :s )
>
> Thanks everybody
> Claudiu
>
>

encode base64



Ivo,

I never thought that me being disappointed in someone, or
thinking a little bit less of them than I used to was a form of
blackmail.

You don't have to do anything you don't want to.=20

I am just sorry that because of what I feel is a foolish and
mistaken belief on your part about some sort of market advantage
you are going to restrict your participation in the free exchange
of ideas about how to use the language that we all love.

Personally I never worry about trying to make techniques, or
methods of code use secret, in fact the source code of our main
pieces of retail software isn't even obfuscated at all. You can
download the source code and read it any time you want.

In fact anyone can download QwkTracker, QwkGuard, our AIM module
for Miva merchant, as well as QwkRed and a couple of other things
and look at the way we coded them buy going to
<A HREF ="http://www.4thebest.com/downloads/">http://www.4thebest.com/downloads/</A>

Of course you can't use them in a Miva Merchant store without a
license number unless you hack the code, and if you did that you
would be committing a crime and being a rotten person.

Also we have tons of custom and stand alone programming we have
written, and if one of those applications happened to contain a
method of doing something that I knew a member of this list
wanted to know how to do I wouldn't' hesitate in sending them
example code, or even the whole application.

I tend to give out source code, for demonstration purposes, and
advice very freely to members of the community. I have yet to
turn anyone away any Miva script developer that asked for advice
from me when they emailed me or called me on the phone, and I
have often sent people source code, including sending full blown
custom applications worth many thousands of dollars to them and
trusting that they would learn from them but not steal them.

I tend to trust people more than others think is wise but so far
in my life I have been rewarded by that many more times than I
have been hurt by it.

I guess we just think differently on this issue, and that is
fine.

I apologize for the "violent attack" I just always thought you
were of a similar mind as I am about the Miva script language,
and helping other developers, etc. I was wrong, and being shown
to be wrong in such an abrupt way made me respond rashly.

- Jeff Huber
President 4TheBest eCommerce Solutions
http://4TheBest.com
[email protected]
Office: 760-742-1469
Cell: 760-445-8454
=20




-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ivo Truxa
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 6:42 PM
To: 'Miva Users List'
Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64


Jeff,=20

I would not expect such a violent attack and blackmailing, but
certainly you
have the right to express your feelings. I do not think I
deserved it. I
believe I gave the community more programming techniques and
tricks than
most of others.=20

As for the dynamic function calls - you are mistaken - I
published the first
method for dynamic function execution using filters as soon as I
found it
and before I wrote Vladdy. I did not bother publishing the
performance
improvement with the assembler hack, since firstly I had no
feedback or sign
of interest after publishing the first method, then the
functionality is
identical, and lastly it required modifying the assembler, hence
it was not
really a "clean" solution.

Am I creating a market advantage? Hmm, yes, probably yes, though
I believe
everybody does it. I guess you are also not going to publish all
your source
code. I've spent several days of experimenting and testing,
before I found
the right way and managed to get the binary reading working.
Although I love
to share various tricks with the community, this one was not easy
to find,
and the effort has to pay back first.

Maybe, if you had asked and insisted politely without offences, I
could had
changed my mind and published the trick, but I definitely won't
do it under
such blackmailing pressure.

Sorry for that,

Ivo
http://mivo.truxoft.com=20



-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Huber - Listmail


Ivo,

Since I, or any other developer that has released one or more
Miva Merchant modules could reasonably be considered your
"competitor", and since most of the people in that group, or I
assume most of them, could already easily release a Miva Merchant
software solution that attached files to email very easily and
thus compete with MmATTACH if we wanted to, I think it is a bad
excuse not to share the coding technique on this list.

This list has always been a place where people with a shared
interest for or in some cases a love of the Miva script language
can share experiences and work together to improve the ability of
all of use using the language.

There are a significant number of people that make a lot of money
selling Miva Merchant modules that learned a lot about how to
program from Myself and the other "core" members of this list and
they are our "competitors" now in one sense or another. I always
considered you one of the "core" members because I never saw you
hold back information based on some stupid market advantage
excuse, and because I thought that you, like many others, had a
fondness for the language that often goes beyond it's commercial
worth.

If you aren't going to share a technique of using the language
then it seems to me that maybe you are no longer really "One of
us". Maybe you have succumbed to the "dark side" and become "one
of them", whoever "them" is.

Many people who use Miva script only have Miva script as a
scripting option, they can't use other means, and for them, who
are not your "competitors" and who are the people who used to be
the only type of people on this list, knowing that technique
might be very nice.

The fact that you don't want to share it with the community
because of some supposed, and I believe non existent, market
advantage. makes me think less of you than I used to.

Especially when I combine this current event with the reaction
you had when Darren Ehlers posted his assembler file technique to
allow dynamic function calls and you quickly jumped in and said
that was an old obvious technique you had been using for a long
time with the Vladdy engine, and yet you had never seen fit to
publish the technique on this list. I guess that was another
market advantage that you didn't want to give up, and yet you
sure wanted to jump in and claim credit for the technique after
the fact.

I wonder if there are more of you than I realize and maybe that
is why we (Meaning Jeff Collins, myself, and a few others) found
it so hard to get support for the Miva script Open source
project.

When people have asked questions about things I have never
hesitated to answer and even provide source code, just because
what we were doing was a technique used in a Miva Merchant
module.

I am saddened by your attitude Ivo, adn even though it may not
mean anythign to you I am also dissapointed in you.

I hope you will see the error of your ways and "come back into
the light".

I shouldn't send this to the list because I am not in a calm and
rational frame of mind, but I usually avoid posting when I am
annoyed and upset for fear that I will say something I will
regret later.

In this case I don't care.

- Jeff Huber
President 4TheBest eCommerce Solutions
http://4TheBest.com
[email protected]
Office: 760-742-1469
Cell: 760-445-8454
=20




-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ivo Truxa
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 4:04 PM
To: 'Miva Users List'
Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64


Yes, it _is_ possible to achieve it in plain Miva Script.
Unfortunately, I
cannot disclose the exact way, because one of my commercial
products is
based on the trick (MmATTACH) and disclosing it would endanger
its market
position. The trick is not quite simple; it uses secondary
effects of
unexpected functions, but it works fine.=20

In case of need I could provide a compiled library containing the
function,
though. Better told, I could disclose the way how to call the
function from
the MmATTACH module (after adjusting it little bit), when
installed on the
system.

Just please note that the encoding is not very fast and not well
suitable
for files bigger than few hundreds of kilobytes. Whenever
possible, using an
external encoder like MimeConv 2 freely available on my website
is a much
faster solution.

Ivo
http://mivo.truxoft.com=20




-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Huber - Listmail


Ahh, but if you can get the file into a string then you can use
it :)

We actually got very close to an algorithm that would let us
GUESS at the file contents enough that we could suck up files
using MvIMPORT and the encode them and manipulate them.

In fact we have successfully done it with a number of files but
it is not stable because if the guesses are wrong then everything
falls apart badly.

The problem of course is rooted in the fact that MvIMPORT is
specifically intended to import text files that are considered
one record per line, and a line is determined by the existence of
a LF, CR, or CRLF, which means that Miva eats some of the binary
data and you can't be sure which it eats.

I am holding out hope that we will get a way to read files in a
more raw manner into variables sometime after 5.o of Empresa is
released, and if we don't then we will be building and releasing
a file system function library for Miva Empresa VM because we
have some things planned for early next year that we HAVE to have
that functionality for and I have reasons why I want it all done
as Miva script rather than using PHP, Perl, C, etc.

- Jeff Huber
President 4TheBest eCommerce Solutions
http://4TheBest.com
[email protected]
Office: 760-742-1469
Cell: 760-445-8454
=20


-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
[email protected]
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 2:09 PM
To: 'Claudiu Bischoff'; Miva Users List
Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64


Hi,
I was under the impression that crypto_base64_encode function
only worked on
strings-not files. How exactly do you use the function? -
crypto_base64_encode(l.image_url)???

Bill M.

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf
Of Claudiu Bischoff
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 9:47 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [meu] encode base64


Hi all,

I'm trying to encode some images in my automated e-mails (due to
the new
SP2 I cannot use web hosted images in my multimedia e-mails
anymore) and I
want to make this happen with the new miva crypto_base64_encode
function.
The only problem I have is that I don't have the correct result.
I'm
importing the image and encoding it to insert it in my multipart
e-mail
body. All is fine less the encoded result. I have encoded the
same image
with another software and I noticed that the begining of the
encrypted
result is ok.. but after a few characters my miva result change..

Miva encoded image result :
/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQEAYABgAAD/2wBDAAgGBgcGBQgHBwcJCQg=3DDBQ=3DDAsLDBkSE
w8UHRofHh0a
HBw=3DGDIhHCEyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIy MjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyM
jIyMjIyMjIy
Mv/AABEIAF8AXQMBIgACEQEDEQH/xAAfAAABBQEBAQEBAQAAAAAAAAAAAQI ..
etc .. etc

VB software encoded image result :
/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQEAYABgAAD/2wBDAAgGBgcGBQgHBwcJCQgKDBQNDAsLDBkSE
w8UHRofHh0a
HBwgJC4nICIsIxwcKDcpLDAxNDQ0Hyc5PTgyPC4zNDL/2wBDAQkJCQwLDBgNDRgyI
RwhMjIyMjIy
MjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMj IyMjIyMjL/wA ..
etc .. etc

The VB result is working well with Outlook and other e-mail
clients, but..
the miva one is not working at all (I have a broken image in the
e-mail
body)

Does anybody is aware of some encoding problems with the
crypto_base64_encode(data) function?

PS: I already looked on the Ivo website encoding solution but I
need a 100%
mivascript solution ( if there is one .. :s )

Thanks everybody
Claudiu

encode base64



Maybe I shouldn't think less of him for sharing his supposed
trick for getting binary data available to a Miva script, but I
do.

Many people who have used Miva script over the years, even all
the way back to when it was htmlscript have come up with cool
ways of making the language do something that we didn't think it
could do.

And I have never in that time known of a developer to refuse to
share such an idea because they thought it had some sort of
commercial benefit to keep it secret.

Now surely many did hide things because they thought it had some
value, but if they didn't they never mentioned it in a public
forum.

Maybe the real truth is that the list that I thought existed
doesn't exist any more and has been replaced by a "pod list" like
a "pod person" from invasion of the body snatchers. And this "pod
list" is made up of people trying to trick other people into
giving up their Miva script "secrets" so they can compete against
them later in the Commercial Miva script development market, or
people trying to ... what would other people be doing here then?

Why be on the list if you don't want to share experiences,
techniques, advice, etc about using the language?

I know that I don't contribute to this list as much as I would
like because running a small business takes a lot of time and
effort, and I guess I assumed that a lot of the slow down of idea
exchange on this list was a combination of others in the same
boat, combined with a smaller community, and most of them knowing
the basics already.

I guess maybe I am wrong about that, and maybe that most of the
people don't share ideas here because they are afraid that they
will lose a market advantage.

I hope I am wrong about being wrong.

- Jeff Huber
President 4TheBest eCommerce Solutions
http://4TheBest.com
[email protected]
Office: 760-742-1469
Cell: 760-445-8454
=20



-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ben Walsh
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 7:21 PM
To: 'Miva Users List'
Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64


It's Ivo's code and he's not under any obligation to disclose it.
Nobody
should think less of him for not giving away his software.

>I shouldn't send this to the list because I am not in a calm and
>rational frame of mind, but I usually avoid posting when I am
>annoyed and upset for fear that I will say something I will
>regret later.

Jeff, I regret to say, take your own advice.

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf
Of Ivo Truxa
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 8:42 PM
To: 'Miva Users List'
Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64

Jeff,=20

I would not expect such a violent attack and blackmailing, but
certainly you
have the right to express your feelings. I do not think I
deserved it. I
believe I gave the community more programming techniques and
tricks than
most of others.=20

As for the dynamic function calls - you are mistaken - I
published the first
method for dynamic function execution using filters as soon as I
found it
and before I wrote Vladdy. I did not bother publishing the
performance
improvement with the assembler hack, since firstly I had no
feedback or sign
of interest after publishing the first method, then the
functionality is
identical, and lastly it required modifying the assembler, hence
it was not
really a "clean" solution.

Am I creating a market advantage? Hmm, yes, probably yes, though
I believe
everybody does it. I guess you are also not going to publish all
your source
code. I've spent several days of experimenting and testing,
before I found
the right way and managed to get the binary reading working.
Although I love
to share various tricks with the community, this one was not easy
to find,
and the effort has to pay back first.

Maybe, if you had asked and insisted politely without offences, I
could had
changed my mind and published the trick, but I definitely won't
do it under
such blackmailing pressure.

Sorry for that,

Ivo
http://mivo.truxoft.com=20



-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Huber - Listmail


Ivo,

Since I, or any other developer that has released one or more
Miva Merchant modules could reasonably be considered your
"competitor", and since most of the people in that group, or I
assume most of them, could already easily release a Miva Merchant
software solution that attached files to email very easily and
thus compete with MmATTACH if we wanted to, I think it is a bad
excuse not to share the coding technique on this list.

This list has always been a place where people with a shared
interest for or in some cases a love of the Miva script language
can share experiences and work together to improve the ability of
all of use using the language.

There are a significant number of people that make a lot of money
selling Miva Merchant modules that learned a lot about how to
program from Myself and the other "core" members of this list and
they are our "competitors" now in one sense or another. I always
considered you one of the "core" members because I never saw you
hold back information based on some stupid market advantage
excuse, and because I thought that you, like many others, had a
fondness for the language that often goes beyond it's commercial
worth.

If you aren't going to share a technique of using the language
then it seems to me that maybe you are no longer really "One of
us". Maybe you have succumbed to the "dark side" and become "one
of them", whoever "them" is.

Many people who use Miva script only have Miva script as a
scripting option, they can't use other means, and for them, who
are not your "competitors" and who are the people who used to be
the only type of people on this list, knowing that technique
might be very nice.

The fact that you don't want to share it with the community
because of some supposed, and I believe non existent, market
advantage. makes me think less of you than I used to.

Especially when I combine this current event with the reaction
you had when Darren Ehlers posted his assembler file technique to
allow dynamic function calls and you quickly jumped in and said
that was an old obvious technique you had been using for a long
time with the Vladdy engine, and yet you had never seen fit to
publish the technique on this list. I guess that was another
market advantage that you didn't want to give up, and yet you
sure wanted to jump in and claim credit for the technique after
the fact.

I wonder if there are more of you than I realize and maybe that
is why we (Meaning Jeff Collins, myself, and a few others) found
it so hard to get support for the Miva script Open source
project.

When people have asked questions about things I have never
hesitated to answer and even provide source code, just because
what we were doing was a technique used in a Miva Merchant
module.

I am saddened by your attitude Ivo, adn even though it may not
mean anythign to you I am also dissapointed in you.

I hope you will see the error of your ways and "come back into
the light".

I shouldn't send this to the list because I am not in a calm and
rational frame of mind, but I usually avoid posting when I am
annoyed and upset for fear that I will say something I will
regret later.

In this case I don't care.

- Jeff Huber
President 4TheBest eCommerce Solutions
http://4TheBest.com
[email protected]
Office: 760-742-1469
Cell: 760-445-8454
=20




-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ivo Truxa
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 4:04 PM
To: 'Miva Users List'
Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64


Yes, it _is_ possible to achieve it in plain Miva Script.
Unfortunately, I
cannot disclose the exact way, because one of my commercial
products is
based on the trick (MmATTACH) and disclosing it would endanger
its market
position. The trick is not quite simple; it uses secondary
effects of
unexpected functions, but it works fine.=20

In case of need I could provide a compiled library containing the
function,
though. Better told, I could disclose the way how to call the
function from
the MmATTACH module (after adjusting it little bit), when
installed on the
system.

Just please note that the encoding is not very fast and not well
suitable
for files bigger than few hundreds of kilobytes. Whenever
possible, using an
external encoder like MimeConv 2 freely available on my website
is a much
faster solution.

Ivo
http://mivo.truxoft.com=20




-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Huber - Listmail


Ahh, but if you can get the file into a string then you can use
it :)

We actually got very close to an algorithm that would let us
GUESS at the file contents enough that we could suck up files
using MvIMPORT and the encode them and manipulate them.

In fact we have successfully done it with a number of files but
it is not stable because if the guesses are wrong then everything
falls apart badly.

The problem of course is rooted in the fact that MvIMPORT is
specifically intended to import text files that are considered
one record per line, and a line is determined by the existence of
a LF, CR, or CRLF, which means that Miva eats some of the binary
data and you can't be sure which it eats.

I am holding out hope that we will get a way to read files in a
more raw manner into variables sometime after 5.o of Empresa is
released, and if we don't then we will be building and releasing
a file system function library for Miva Empresa VM because we
have some things planned for early next year that we HAVE to have
that functionality for and I have reasons why I want it all done
as Miva script rather than using PHP, Perl, C, etc.

- Jeff Huber
President 4TheBest eCommerce Solutions
http://4TheBest.com
[email protected]
Office: 760-742-1469
Cell: 760-445-8454
=20


-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
[email protected]
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 2:09 PM
To: 'Claudiu Bischoff'; Miva Users List
Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64


Hi,
I was under the impression that crypto_base64_encode function
only worked on
strings-not files. How exactly do you use the function? -
crypto_base64_encode(l.image_url)???

Bill M.

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf
Of Claudiu Bischoff
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 9:47 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [meu] encode base64


Hi all,

I'm trying to encode some images in my automated e-mails (due to
the new
SP2 I cannot use web hosted images in my multimedia e-mails
anymore) and I
want to make this happen with the new miva crypto_base64_encode
function.
The only problem I have is that I don't have the correct result.
I'm
importing the image and encoding it to insert it in my multipart
e-mail
body. All is fine less the encoded result. I have encoded the
same image
with another software and I noticed that the begining of the
encrypted
result is ok.. but after a few characters my miva result change..

Miva encoded image result :
/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQEAYABgAAD/2wBDAAgGBgcGBQgHBwcJCQg=3DDBQ=3DDAsLDBkSE
w8UHRofHh0a
HBw=3DGDIhHCEyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIy MjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyM
jIyMjIyMjIy
Mv/AABEIAF8AXQMBIgACEQEDEQH/xAAfAAABBQEBAQEBAQAAAAAAAAAAAQI ..
etc .. etc

VB software encoded image result :
/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQEAYABgAAD/2wBDAAgGBgcGBQgHBwcJCQgKDBQNDAsLDBkSE
w8UHRofHh0a
HBwgJC4nICIsIxwcKDcpLDAxNDQ0Hyc5PTgyPC4zNDL/2wBDAQkJCQwLDBgNDRgyI
RwhMjIyMjIy
MjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMj IyMjIyMjL/wA ..
etc .. etc

The VB result is working well with Outlook and other e-mail
clients, but..
the miva one is not working at all (I have a broken image in the
e-mail
body)

Does anybody is aware of some encoding problems with the
crypto_base64_encode(data) function?

PS: I already looked on the Ivo website encoding solution but I
need a 100%
mivascript solution ( if there is one .. :s )

Thanks everybody
Claudiu

encode base64



Ivo & Jeff,

I remember doing this once, so it's not like it's impossible
for other folks to figure out. I've since lost the source and
forgotten how I did it. Maybe instead of doing it again, I'll
just publish a binary utilities library some day. :) Of course,
the difficulty there is getting the hosts to install it...

cheers,
james

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]On
Behalf Of Jeff Huber - Listmail
Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2004 1:57 AM
To: 'Ivo Truxa'; 'Miva Users List'
Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64


Ivo,

I never thought that me being disappointed in someone, or
thinking a little bit less of them than I used to was a form of
blackmail.

You don't have to do anything you don't want to.

I am just sorry that because of what I feel is a foolish and
mistaken belief on your part about some sort of market advantage
you are going to restrict your participation in the free exchange
of ideas about how to use the language that we all love.

Personally I never worry about trying to make techniques, or
methods of code use secret, in fact the source code of our main
pieces of retail software isn't even obfuscated at all. You can
download the source code and read it any time you want.

In fact anyone can download QwkTracker, QwkGuard, our AIM module
for Miva merchant, as well as QwkRed and a couple of other things
and look at the way we coded them buy going to
<A HREF ="http://www.4thebest.com/downloads/">http://www.4thebest.com/downloads/</A>

Of course you can't use them in a Miva Merchant store without a
license number unless you hack the code, and if you did that you
would be committing a crime and being a rotten person.

Also we have tons of custom and stand alone programming we have
written, and if one of those applications happened to contain a
method of doing something that I knew a member of this list
wanted to know how to do I wouldn't' hesitate in sending them
example code, or even the whole application.

I tend to give out source code, for demonstration purposes, and
advice very freely to members of the community. I have yet to
turn anyone away any Miva script developer that asked for advice
from me when they emailed me or called me on the phone, and I
have often sent people source code, including sending full blown
custom applications worth many thousands of dollars to them and
trusting that they would learn from them but not steal them.

I tend to trust people more than others think is wise but so far
in my life I have been rewarded by that many more times than I
have been hurt by it.

I guess we just think differently on this issue, and that is
fine.

I apologize for the "violent attack" I just always thought you
were of a similar mind as I am about the Miva script language,
and helping other developers, etc. I was wrong, and being shown
to be wrong in such an abrupt way made me respond rashly.

- Jeff Huber
President 4TheBest eCommerce Solutions
http://4TheBest.com
[email protected]
Office: 760-742-1469
Cell: 760-445-8454





-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ivo Truxa
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 6:42 PM
To: 'Miva Users List'
Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64


Jeff,

I would not expect such a violent attack and blackmailing, but
certainly you
have the right to express your feelings. I do not think I
deserved it. I
believe I gave the community more programming techniques and
tricks than
most of others.

As for the dynamic function calls - you are mistaken - I
published the first
method for dynamic function execution using filters as soon as I
found it
and before I wrote Vladdy. I did not bother publishing the
performance
improvement with the assembler hack, since firstly I had no
feedback or sign
of interest after publishing the first method, then the
functionality is
identical, and lastly it required modifying the assembler, hence
it was not
really a "clean" solution.

Am I creating a market advantage? Hmm, yes, probably yes, though
I believe
everybody does it. I guess you are also not going to publish all
your source
code. I've spent several days of experimenting and testing,
before I found
the right way and managed to get the binary reading working.
Although I love
to share various tricks with the community, this one was not easy
to find,
and the effort has to pay back first.

Maybe, if you had asked and insisted politely without offences, I
could had
changed my mind and published the trick, but I definitely won't
do it under
such blackmailing pressure.

Sorry for that,

Ivo
http://mivo.truxoft.com



-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Huber - Listmail


Ivo,

Since I, or any other developer that has released one or more
Miva Merchant modules could reasonably be considered your
"competitor", and since most of the people in that group, or I
assume most of them, could already easily release a Miva Merchant
software solution that attached files to email very easily and
thus compete with MmATTACH if we wanted to, I think it is a bad
excuse not to share the coding technique on this list.

This list has always been a place where people with a shared
interest for or in some cases a love of the Miva script language
can share experiences and work together to improve the ability of
all of use using the language.

There are a significant number of people that make a lot of money
selling Miva Merchant modules that learned a lot about how to
program from Myself and the other "core" members of this list and
they are our "competitors" now in one sense or another. I always
considered you one of the "core" members because I never saw you
hold back information based on some stupid market advantage
excuse, and because I thought that you, like many others, had a
fondness for the language that often goes beyond it's commercial
worth.

If you aren't going to share a technique of using the language
then it seems to me that maybe you are no longer really "One of
us". Maybe you have succumbed to the "dark side" and become "one
of them", whoever "them" is.

Many people who use Miva script only have Miva script as a
scripting option, they can't use other means, and for them, who
are not your "competitors" and who are the people who used to be
the only type of people on this list, knowing that technique
might be very nice.

The fact that you don't want to share it with the community
because of some supposed, and I believe non existent, market
advantage. makes me think less of you than I used to.

Especially when I combine this current event with the reaction
you had when Darren Ehlers posted his assembler file technique to
allow dynamic function calls and you quickly jumped in and said
that was an old obvious technique you had been using for a long
time with the Vladdy engine, and yet you had never seen fit to
publish the technique on this list. I guess that was another
market advantage that you didn't want to give up, and yet you
sure wanted to jump in and claim credit for the technique after
the fact.

I wonder if there are more of you than I realize and maybe that
is why we (Meaning Jeff Collins, myself, and a few others) found
it so hard to get support for the Miva script Open source
project.

When people have asked questions about things I have never
hesitated to answer and even provide source code, just because
what we were doing was a technique used in a Miva Merchant
module.

I am saddened by your attitude Ivo, adn even though it may not
mean anythign to you I am also dissapointed in you.

I hope you will see the error of your ways and "come back into
the light".

I shouldn't send this to the list because I am not in a calm and
rational frame of mind, but I usually avoid posting when I am
annoyed and upset for fear that I will say something I will
regret later.

In this case I don't care.

- Jeff Huber
President 4TheBest eCommerce Solutions
http://4TheBest.com
[email protected]
Office: 760-742-1469
Cell: 760-445-8454





-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ivo Truxa
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 4:04 PM
To: 'Miva Users List'
Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64


Yes, it _is_ possible to achieve it in plain Miva Script.
Unfortunately, I
cannot disclose the exact way, because one of my commercial
products is
based on the trick (MmATTACH) and disclosing it would endanger
its market
position. The trick is not quite simple; it uses secondary
effects of
unexpected functions, but it works fine.

In case of need I could provide a compiled library containing the
function,
though. Better told, I could disclose the way how to call the
function from
the MmATTACH module (after adjusting it little bit), when
installed on the
system.

Just please note that the encoding is not very fast and not well
suitable
for files bigger than few hundreds of kilobytes. Whenever
possible, using an
external encoder like MimeConv 2 freely available on my website
is a much
faster solution.

Ivo
http://mivo.truxoft.com




-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Huber - Listmail


Ahh, but if you can get the file into a string then you can use
it :)

We actually got very close to an algorithm that would let us
GUESS at the file contents enough that we could suck up files
using MvIMPORT and the encode them and manipulate them.

In fact we have successfully done it with a number of files but
it is not stable because if the guesses are wrong then everything
falls apart badly.

The problem of course is rooted in the fact that MvIMPORT is
specifically intended to import text files that are considered
one record per line, and a line is determined by the existence of
a LF, CR, or CRLF, which means that Miva eats some of the binary
data and you can't be sure which it eats.

I am holding out hope that we will get a way to read files in a
more raw manner into variables sometime after 5.o of Empresa is
released, and if we don't then we will be building and releasing
a file system function library for Miva Empresa VM because we
have some things planned for early next year that we HAVE to have
that functionality for and I have reasons why I want it all done
as Miva script rather than using PHP, Perl, C, etc.

- Jeff Huber
President 4TheBest eCommerce Solutions
http://4TheBest.com
[email protected]
Office: 760-742-1469
Cell: 760-445-8454



-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
[email protected]
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 2:09 PM
To: 'Claudiu Bischoff'; Miva Users List
Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64


Hi,
I was under the impression that crypto_base64_encode function
only worked on
strings-not files. How exactly do you use the function? -
crypto_base64_encode(l.image_url)???

Bill M.

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf
Of Claudiu Bischoff
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 9:47 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [meu] encode base64


Hi all,

I'm trying to encode some images in my automated e-mails (due to
the new
SP2 I cannot use web hosted images in my multimedia e-mails
anymore) and I
want to make this happen with the new miva crypto_base64_encode
function.
The only problem I have is that I don't have the correct result.
I'm
importing the image and encoding it to insert it in my multipart
e-mail
body. All is fine less the encoded result. I have encoded the
same image
with another software and I noticed that the begining of the
encrypted
result is ok.. but after a few characters my miva result change..

Miva encoded image result :
/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQEAYABgAAD/2wBDAAgGBgcGBQgHBwcJCQg=DBQ=DAsLDBkSE
w8UHRofHh0a
HBw=GDIhHCEyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMj IyMjIyMjIyMjIyM
jIyMjIyMjIy
Mv/AABEIAF8AXQMBIgACEQEDEQH/xAAfAAABBQEBAQEBAQAAAAAAAAAAAQI ..
etc .. etc

VB software encoded image result :
/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQEAYABgAAD/2wBDAAgGBgcGBQgHBwcJCQgKDBQNDAsLDBkSE
w8UHRofHh0a
HBwgJC4nICIsIxwcKDcpLDAxNDQ0Hyc5PTgyPC4zNDL/2wBDAQkJCQwLDBgNDRgyI
RwhMjIyMjIy
MjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMj IyMjIyMjL/wA ..
etc .. etc

The VB result is working well with Outlook and other e-mail
clients, but..
the miva one is not working at all (I have a broken image in the
e-mail
body)

Does anybody is aware of some encoding problems with the
crypto_base64_encode(data) function?

PS: I already looked on the Ivo website encoding solution but I
need a 100%
mivascript solution ( if there is one .. :s )

Thanks everybody
Claudiu

encode base64



Claudiu,

Make sure that when you do that that you are dealing with the
security issues of letting input determine the output file.

You don't want someone calling the script like
file.php?source_file=3D../../protected/somefile.ext

Make sure that you have a base path set in the PHP code that
determines the starting point of where to look for a file, and
then validate that the input from outside doesn't have any '../'
in it so that someone can't escape out of the directory you start
them in.

Also make sure the directory you are limiting them to, and all
the sub directories below it contain nothing but images that you
are perfectly okay with people getting copies of.

Of course you could also have a password protection so that you
MvCALL the script like this:

file.php?source_file=3Dsomefile.jpg&hash=3D88b9fab fb98f98asfbf98f9b8f
9b889

And the hash is a crypto_md5 of the image name concatenated with
a password. And the PHP script has that same password and does an
md5 on the passed in image name and the password it knows about
and compares it to the hash sent in. If they match then you allow
the access, otherwise you don't.

Of course if the website has it's own ip address then you could
detect the remote_addr in the PHP script and only allow requests
originating from that IP.

This type of security issue is something you need to take into
account any time you communicate from inside Miva scripts to
outside scripts using MvCALL. If a Miva script can send the
MvCALL, then so can other people. Also you need to think about it
if you have the reverse happening, if for example your Miva
script is going to be called from a PHP script, or a cron tab
entry, or whatever.


- Jeff Huber
President 4TheBest eCommerce Solutions
http://4TheBest.com
[email protected]
Office: 760-742-1469
Cell: 760-445-8454
=20




-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Claudiu Bischoff
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 7:07 PM
To: Jeff Huber - Listmail; [email protected]
Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64


Thanks Jeff.. Yes indeed I finally used a php function to get my
encoded
image. I paste the code here if someone have the same problem I
had:

<?php
$handle =3D fopen($source_file,'rb');
$file_content =3D fread($handle,filesize($source_file));
fclose($handle);
$encoded =3D chunk_split(base64_encode($file_content));
echo $encoded;
?>

All you have to do is to put this function in a file and call it
from your
miva script (ex:
http://domain.com/fie.php?source_file=3Dyour_image.jpg )

Best regards,
Claudiu

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Huber - Listmail [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: mardi 12 octobre 2004 23:57
To: 'Claudiu Bischoff'; [email protected]
Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64


You can't encode them with Miva script unless you have the binary
data in the variable, and you can't get the binary data into the
variable by using an import because the import makes assumptions
about the data and strips out characters or modifies them based
on those assumptions.

When we need to do this sort of things, we store the already
encoded version of the image as base64 in a file, or in a
database memo field and then we use the
crypto_base64_decode(data) in combination with the header control
functions to stream out the image.

So, while you can get the encode binary data to stream out of
Miva scripts as binary data, thus delivering a binary image, PDF,
etc. You can't use native Miva script to encode the file
contents.

Sorry.

- Jeff Huber
President 4TheBest eCommerce Solutions
http://4TheBest.com
[email protected]
Office: 760-742-1469
Cell: 760-445-8454



-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Claudiu Bischoff
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 7:47 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [meu] encode base64


Hi all,

I'm trying to encode some images in my automated e-mails (due to
the new
SP2 I cannot use web hosted images in my multimedia e-mails
anymore) and I
want to make this happen with the new miva crypto_base64_encode
function.
The only problem I have is that I don't have the correct result.
I'm
importing the image and encoding it to insert it in my multipart
e-mail
body. All is fine less the encoded result. I have encoded the
same image
with another software and I noticed that the begining of the
encrypted
result is ok.. but after a few characters my miva result change..

Miva encoded image result :
/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQEAYABgAAD/2wBDAAgGBgcGBQgHBwcJCQg=3DDBQ=3DDAsLDBkSE
w8UHRofHh0a
HBw=3DGDIhHCEyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIy MjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyM
jIyMjIyMjIy
Mv/AABEIAF8AXQMBIgACEQEDEQH/xAAfAAABBQEBAQEBAQAAAAAAAAAAAQI ..
etc .. etc

VB software encoded image result :
/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQEAYABgAAD/2wBDAAgGBgcGBQgHBwcJCQgKDBQNDAsLDBkSE
w8UHRofHh0a
HBwgJC4nICIsIxwcKDcpLDAxNDQ0Hyc5PTgyPC4zNDL/2wBDAQkJCQwLDBgNDRgyI
RwhMjIyMjIy
MjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMj IyMjIyMjL/wA ..
etc .. etc

The VB result is working well with Outlook and other e-mail
clients, but..
the miva one is not working at all (I have a broken image in the
e-mail
body)

Does anybody is aware of some encoding problems with the
crypto_base64_encode(data) function?

PS: I already looked on the Ivo website encoding solution but I
need a 100%
mivascript solution ( if there is one .. :s )

Thanks everybody
Claudiu

encode base64



James,

After the next release of the VM comes out if we don't see better
file functions either available or soon to be available we are
going to want and need such a library.

If that is the case I am going to have James build one unless
someone else does. By James I am referring to my older brother
James who is our director of development, who used to be at Miva,
not to be confused with the James that used to work at Miva but
then didn't work at Miva who works there again who was also known
affectionately as "evil James" while we were all at Miva
together, and whom you probably know better as Jas.

But, If you want to make one I would be happy to use it. :)

You are right though about the hard part being getting hosts to
install it.

I think though that if the functionality was documented and the
source code was available to cautious hosts so they could see the
code wasn't opening up a back doors and they could compile it
themselves, then hosts would either install the library, or
people that needed the functionality would leave those hosts to
go to other hosts just like they do now when the host won't
install the carts directory properly and won't install the
OpenSSL libraries and that causes people not to be able to use
modules that make use of the secure MvCALL features.

I believe that VM Libraries will become a much more commonly seen
thing in the next year. In fact I think some hosts will start
promoting that they support extended Miva functionality as yet
one more thing to differentiate them.

- Jeff Huber
President 4TheBest eCommerce Solutions
http://4TheBest.com
[email protected]
Office: 760-742-1469
Cell: 760-445-8454
=20

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of James Harrell
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 11:19 PM
To: Jeff Huber - Listmail; 'Ivo Truxa'; 'Miva Users List'
Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64


Ivo & Jeff,

I remember doing this once, so it's not like it's impossible
for other folks to figure out. I've since lost the source and
forgotten how I did it. Maybe instead of doing it again, I'll
just publish a binary utilities library some day. :) Of course,
the difficulty there is getting the hosts to install it...

cheers,
james

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]]On
Behalf Of Jeff Huber - Listmail
Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2004 1:57 AM
To: 'Ivo Truxa'; 'Miva Users List'
Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64


Ivo,

I never thought that me being disappointed in someone, or
thinking a little bit less of them than I used to was a form of
blackmail.

You don't have to do anything you don't want to.=20

I am just sorry that because of what I feel is a foolish and
mistaken belief on your part about some sort of market advantage
you are going to restrict your participation in the free exchange
of ideas about how to use the language that we all love.

Personally I never worry about trying to make techniques, or
methods of code use secret, in fact the source code of our main
pieces of retail software isn't even obfuscated at all. You can
download the source code and read it any time you want.

In fact anyone can download QwkTracker, QwkGuard, our AIM module
for Miva merchant, as well as QwkRed and a couple of other things
and look at the way we coded them buy going to
<A HREF ="http://www.4thebest.com/downloads/">http://www.4thebest.com/downloads/</A>

Of course you can't use them in a Miva Merchant store without a
license number unless you hack the code, and if you did that you
would be committing a crime and being a rotten person.

Also we have tons of custom and stand alone programming we have
written, and if one of those applications happened to contain a
method of doing something that I knew a member of this list
wanted to know how to do I wouldn't' hesitate in sending them
example code, or even the whole application.

I tend to give out source code, for demonstration purposes, and
advice very freely to members of the community. I have yet to
turn anyone away any Miva script developer that asked for advice
from me when they emailed me or called me on the phone, and I
have often sent people source code, including sending full blown
custom applications worth many thousands of dollars to them and
trusting that they would learn from them but not steal them.

I tend to trust people more than others think is wise but so far
in my life I have been rewarded by that many more times than I
have been hurt by it.

I guess we just think differently on this issue, and that is
fine.

I apologize for the "violent attack" I just always thought you
were of a similar mind as I am about the Miva script language,
and helping other developers, etc. I was wrong, and being shown
to be wrong in such an abrupt way made me respond rashly.

- Jeff Huber
President 4TheBest eCommerce Solutions
http://4TheBest.com
[email protected]
Office: 760-742-1469
Cell: 760-445-8454
=20




-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ivo Truxa
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 6:42 PM
To: 'Miva Users List'
Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64


Jeff,=20

I would not expect such a violent attack and blackmailing, but
certainly you
have the right to express your feelings. I do not think I
deserved it. I
believe I gave the community more programming techniques and
tricks than
most of others.=20

As for the dynamic function calls - you are mistaken - I
published the first
method for dynamic function execution using filters as soon as I
found it
and before I wrote Vladdy. I did not bother publishing the
performance
improvement with the assembler hack, since firstly I had no
feedback or sign
of interest after publishing the first method, then the
functionality is
identical, and lastly it required modifying the assembler, hence
it was not
really a "clean" solution.

Am I creating a market advantage? Hmm, yes, probably yes, though
I believe
everybody does it. I guess you are also not going to publish all
your source
code. I've spent several days of experimenting and testing,
before I found
the right way and managed to get the binary reading working.
Although I love
to share various tricks with the community, this one was not easy
to find,
and the effort has to pay back first.

Maybe, if you had asked and insisted politely without offences, I
could had
changed my mind and published the trick, but I definitely won't
do it under
such blackmailing pressure.

Sorry for that,

Ivo
http://mivo.truxoft.com=20



-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Huber - Listmail


Ivo,

Since I, or any other developer that has released one or more
Miva Merchant modules could reasonably be considered your
"competitor", and since most of the people in that group, or I
assume most of them, could already easily release a Miva Merchant
software solution that attached files to email very easily and
thus compete with MmATTACH if we wanted to, I think it is a bad
excuse not to share the coding technique on this list.

This list has always been a place where people with a shared
interest for or in some cases a love of the Miva script language
can share experiences and work together to improve the ability of
all of use using the language.

There are a significant number of people that make a lot of money
selling Miva Merchant modules that learned a lot about how to
program from Myself and the other "core" members of this list and
they are our "competitors" now in one sense or another. I always
considered you one of the "core" members because I never saw you
hold back information based on some stupid market advantage
excuse, and because I thought that you, like many others, had a
fondness for the language that often goes beyond it's commercial
worth.

If you aren't going to share a technique of using the language
then it seems to me that maybe you are no longer really "One of
us". Maybe you have succumbed to the "dark side" and become "one
of them", whoever "them" is.

Many people who use Miva script only have Miva script as a
scripting option, they can't use other means, and for them, who
are not your "competitors" and who are the people who used to be
the only type of people on this list, knowing that technique
might be very nice.

The fact that you don't want to share it with the community
because of some supposed, and I believe non existent, market
advantage. makes me think less of you than I used to.

Especially when I combine this current event with the reaction
you had when Darren Ehlers posted his assembler file technique to
allow dynamic function calls and you quickly jumped in and said
that was an old obvious technique you had been using for a long
time with the Vladdy engine, and yet you had never seen fit to
publish the technique on this list. I guess that was another
market advantage that you didn't want to give up, and yet you
sure wanted to jump in and claim credit for the technique after
the fact.

I wonder if there are more of you than I realize and maybe that
is why we (Meaning Jeff Collins, myself, and a few others) found
it so hard to get support for the Miva script Open source
project.

When people have asked questions about things I have never
hesitated to answer and even provide source code, just because
what we were doing was a technique used in a Miva Merchant
module.

I am saddened by your attitude Ivo, adn even though it may not
mean anythign to you I am also dissapointed in you.

I hope you will see the error of your ways and "come back into
the light".

I shouldn't send this to the list because I am not in a calm and
rational frame of mind, but I usually avoid posting when I am
annoyed and upset for fear that I will say something I will
regret later.

In this case I don't care.

- Jeff Huber
President 4TheBest eCommerce Solutions
http://4TheBest.com
[email protected]
Office: 760-742-1469
Cell: 760-445-8454
=20




-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ivo Truxa
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 4:04 PM
To: 'Miva Users List'
Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64


Yes, it _is_ possible to achieve it in plain Miva Script.
Unfortunately, I
cannot disclose the exact way, because one of my commercial
products is
based on the trick (MmATTACH) and disclosing it would endanger
its market
position. The trick is not quite simple; it uses secondary
effects of
unexpected functions, but it works fine.=20

In case of need I could provide a compiled library containing the
function,
though. Better told, I could disclose the way how to call the
function from
the MmATTACH module (after adjusting it little bit), when
installed on the
system.

Just please note that the encoding is not very fast and not well
suitable
for files bigger than few hundreds of kilobytes. Whenever
possible, using an
external encoder like MimeConv 2 freely available on my website
is a much
faster solution.

Ivo
http://mivo.truxoft.com=20




-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Huber - Listmail


Ahh, but if you can get the file into a string then you can use
it :)

We actually got very close to an algorithm that would let us
GUESS at the file contents enough that we could suck up files
using MvIMPORT and the encode them and manipulate them.

In fact we have successfully done it with a number of files but
it is not stable because if the guesses are wrong then everything
falls apart badly.

The problem of course is rooted in the fact that MvIMPORT is
specifically intended to import text files that are considered
one record per line, and a line is determined by the existence of
a LF, CR, or CRLF, which means that Miva eats some of the binary
data and you can't be sure which it eats.

I am holding out hope that we will get a way to read files in a
more raw manner into variables sometime after 5.o of Empresa is
released, and if we don't then we will be building and releasing
a file system function library for Miva Empresa VM because we
have some things planned for early next year that we HAVE to have
that functionality for and I have reasons why I want it all done
as Miva script rather than using PHP, Perl, C, etc.

- Jeff Huber
President 4TheBest eCommerce Solutions
http://4TheBest.com
[email protected]
Office: 760-742-1469
Cell: 760-445-8454
=20


-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
[email protected]
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 2:09 PM
To: 'Claudiu Bischoff'; Miva Users List
Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64


Hi,
I was under the impression that crypto_base64_encode function
only worked on
strings-not files. How exactly do you use the function? -
crypto_base64_encode(l.image_url)???

Bill M.

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf
Of Claudiu Bischoff
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 9:47 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [meu] encode base64


Hi all,

I'm trying to encode some images in my automated e-mails (due to
the new
SP2 I cannot use web hosted images in my multimedia e-mails
anymore) and I
want to make this happen with the new miva crypto_base64_encode
function.
The only problem I have is that I don't have the correct result.
I'm
importing the image and encoding it to insert it in my multipart
e-mail
body. All is fine less the encoded result. I have encoded the
same image
with another software and I noticed that the begining of the
encrypted
result is ok.. but after a few characters my miva result change..

Miva encoded image result :
/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQEAYABgAAD/2wBDAAgGBgcGBQgHBwcJCQg=3DDBQ=3DDAsLDBkSE
w8UHRofHh0a
HBw=3DGDIhHCEyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIy MjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyM
jIyMjIyMjIy
Mv/AABEIAF8AXQMBIgACEQEDEQH/xAAfAAABBQEBAQEBAQAAAAAAAAAAAQI ..
etc .. etc

VB software encoded image result :
/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQEAYABgAAD/2wBDAAgGBgcGBQgHBwcJCQgKDBQNDAsLDBkSE
w8UHRofHh0a
HBwgJC4nICIsIxwcKDcpLDAxNDQ0Hyc5PTgyPC4zNDL/2wBDAQkJCQwLDBgNDRgyI
RwhMjIyMjIy
MjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMj IyMjIyMjL/wA ..
etc .. etc

The VB result is working well with Outlook and other e-mail
clients, but..
the miva one is not working at all (I have a broken image in the
e-mail
body)

Does anybody is aware of some encoding problems with the
crypto_base64_encode(data) function?

PS: I already looked on the Ivo website encoding solution but I
need a 100%
mivascript solution ( if there is one .. :s )

Thanks everybody
Claudiu

encode base64



Uh ... I didn't specified that the code was just as information not to use
like this. Of course Jeff is right.. it needs security improvements.
Personally I use it inside my compiled application and I only accept calls
from inside my server (by the referer). I have another trick .. for
protecting it.. I generate the file and after that I call it and delete it.
The name of the file is a sessionid key .. But this operation is used of
course in my back-office so I don't need speed for my operations.

And.. for the rest.. what to say. I use mivascript for 4 years and I made my
whole business ( a small one of course ) with it and I am for a mivascript
community that share resources. When I see os-commerce and other open source
e-commerce applications .. I must say that their community works better that
the Miva one. And everybody is making profit on it.

Ok .. sorry for my english ( I speak better french :>> ) .. and thanks for
the responses..
Claudiu



-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]On
Behalf Of Jeff Huber - Listmail
Sent: mercredi 13 octobre 2004 08:31
To: 'Claudiu Bischoff'; [email protected]
Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64


Claudiu,

Make sure that when you do that that you are dealing with the
security issues of letting input determine the output file.

You don't want someone calling the script like
file.php?source_file=../../protected/somefile.ext

Make sure that you have a base path set in the PHP code that
determines the starting point of where to look for a file, and
then validate that the input from outside doesn't have any '../'
in it so that someone can't escape out of the directory you start
them in.

Also make sure the directory you are limiting them to, and all
the sub directories below it contain nothing but images that you
are perfectly okay with people getting copies of.

Of course you could also have a password protection so that you
MvCALL the script like this:

file.php?source_file=somefile.jpg&hash=88b9fabfb98 f98asfbf98f9b8f
9b889

And the hash is a crypto_md5 of the image name concatenated with
a password. And the PHP script has that same password and does an
md5 on the passed in image name and the password it knows about
and compares it to the hash sent in. If they match then you allow
the access, otherwise you don't.

Of course if the website has it's own ip address then you could
detect the remote_addr in the PHP script and only allow requests
originating from that IP.

This type of security issue is something you need to take into
account any time you communicate from inside Miva scripts to
outside scripts using MvCALL. If a Miva script can send the
MvCALL, then so can other people. Also you need to think about it
if you have the reverse happening, if for example your Miva
script is going to be called from a PHP script, or a cron tab
entry, or whatever.


- Jeff Huber
President 4TheBest eCommerce Solutions
http://4TheBest.com
[email protected]
Office: 760-742-1469
Cell: 760-445-8454





-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Claudiu Bischoff
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 7:07 PM
To: Jeff Huber - Listmail; [email protected]
Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64


Thanks Jeff.. Yes indeed I finally used a php function to get my
encoded
image. I paste the code here if someone have the same problem I
had:

<?php
$handle = fopen($source_file,'rb');
$file_content = fread($handle,filesize($source_file));
fclose($handle);
$encoded = chunk_split(base64_encode($file_content));
echo $encoded;
?>

All you have to do is to put this function in a file and call it
from your
miva script (ex:
http://domain.com/fie.php?source_file=your_image.jpg )

Best regards,
Claudiu

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Huber - Listmail [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: mardi 12 octobre 2004 23:57
To: 'Claudiu Bischoff'; [email protected]
Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64


You can't encode them with Miva script unless you have the binary
data in the variable, and you can't get the binary data into the
variable by using an import because the import makes assumptions
about the data and strips out characters or modifies them based
on those assumptions.

When we need to do this sort of things, we store the already
encoded version of the image as base64 in a file, or in a
database memo field and then we use the
crypto_base64_decode(data) in combination with the header control
functions to stream out the image.

So, while you can get the encode binary data to stream out of
Miva scripts as binary data, thus delivering a binary image, PDF,
etc. You can't use native Miva script to encode the file
contents.

Sorry.

- Jeff Huber
President 4TheBest eCommerce Solutions
http://4TheBest.com
[email protected]
Office: 760-742-1469
Cell: 760-445-8454



-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Claudiu Bischoff
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 7:47 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [meu] encode base64


Hi all,

I'm trying to encode some images in my automated e-mails (due to
the new
SP2 I cannot use web hosted images in my multimedia e-mails
anymore) and I
want to make this happen with the new miva crypto_base64_encode
function.
The only problem I have is that I don't have the correct result.
I'm
importing the image and encoding it to insert it in my multipart
e-mail
body. All is fine less the encoded result. I have encoded the
same image
with another software and I noticed that the begining of the
encrypted
result is ok.. but after a few characters my miva result change..

Miva encoded image result :
/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQEAYABgAAD/2wBDAAgGBgcGBQgHBwcJCQg=DBQ=DAsLDBkSE
w8UHRofHh0a
HBw=GDIhHCEyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMj IyMjIyMjIyMjIyM
jIyMjIyMjIy
Mv/AABEIAF8AXQMBIgACEQEDEQH/xAAfAAABBQEBAQEBAQAAAAAAAAAAAQI ..
etc .. etc

VB software encoded image result :
/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQEAYABgAAD/2wBDAAgGBgcGBQgHBwcJCQgKDBQNDAsLDBkSE
w8UHRofHh0a
HBwgJC4nICIsIxwcKDcpLDAxNDQ0Hyc5PTgyPC4zNDL/2wBDAQkJCQwLDBgNDRgyI
RwhMjIyMjIy
MjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMj IyMjIyMjL/wA ..
etc .. etc

The VB result is working well with Outlook and other e-mail
clients, but..
the miva one is not working at all (I have a broken image in the
e-mail
body)

Does anybody is aware of some encoding problems with the
crypto_base64_encode(data) function?

PS: I already looked on the Ivo website encoding solution but I
need a 100%
mivascript solution ( if there is one .. :s )

Thanks everybody
Claudiu

encode base64



This is becoming ridiculous. In fact, when I see you are so eagerly willing
this functionality, I do not understand why you as a former chief of
development at Miva, why you did not order the developers to include it. I
bet it is not more work than adding a line into the MvIMPORT C++ function
code - a condition bypassing the escaping of special characters, and then
adding a switch to the tag. Or even simpler, without modifying the syntax,
and without adding a new command or a switch - just putting the entire
binary value into a variable. Probably not more than 5 minutes of work,
possibly even less.

My hack, in comparison to such built-in solution is highly inefficient and
rather slow, and I use it just because there is no other way (I know of) in
pure Miva Script to read binary files including _any_ special or
nonprintable characters. As James wrote, he possibly knows about another
method and should post it too, because I doubt he used this one. In fact,
there may be some more possibilities with all the new functions, but I did
not yet investigate them too closely to find out different secondary
effects.

Well, there were enough of offences, here you go: I use the MvCALL command
to get the content of a binary file into a variable. And no, I do not call
any external or non-miva script that converts it. This information is
certainly sufficient for you to get it working. Feel free to share the exact
code with the community, after checking it out. Invest some work and time
for the community too.

Ivo
http://mivo.truxoft.com




-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Huber - Listmail

Ivo,

I never thought that me being disappointed in someone, or
thinking a little bit less of them than I used to was a form of
blackmail.

You don't have to do anything you don't want to.

I am just sorry that because of what I feel is a foolish and
mistaken belief on your part about some sort of market advantage
you are going to restrict your participation in the free exchange
of ideas about how to use the language that we all love.

Personally I never worry about trying to make techniques, or
methods of code use secret, in fact the source code of our main
pieces of retail software isn't even obfuscated at all. You can
download the source code and read it any time you want.

In fact anyone can download QwkTracker, QwkGuard, our AIM module
for Miva merchant, as well as QwkRed and a couple of other things
and look at the way we coded them buy going to
<A HREF ="http://www.4thebest.com/downloads/">http://www.4thebest.com/downloads/</A>

Of course you can't use them in a Miva Merchant store without a
license number unless you hack the code, and if you did that you
would be committing a crime and being a rotten person.

Also we have tons of custom and stand alone programming we have
written, and if one of those applications happened to contain a
method of doing something that I knew a member of this list
wanted to know how to do I wouldn't' hesitate in sending them
example code, or even the whole application.

I tend to give out source code, for demonstration purposes, and
advice very freely to members of the community. I have yet to
turn anyone away any Miva script developer that asked for advice
from me when they emailed me or called me on the phone, and I
have often sent people source code, including sending full blown
custom applications worth many thousands of dollars to them and
trusting that they would learn from them but not steal them.

I tend to trust people more than others think is wise but so far
in my life I have been rewarded by that many more times than I
have been hurt by it.

I guess we just think differently on this issue, and that is
fine.

I apologize for the "violent attack" I just always thought you
were of a similar mind as I am about the Miva script language,
and helping other developers, etc. I was wrong, and being shown
to be wrong in such an abrupt way made me respond rashly.

- Jeff Huber
President 4TheBest eCommerce Solutions
http://4TheBest.com
[email protected]
Office: 760-742-1469
Cell: 760-445-8454





-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ivo Truxa
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 6:42 PM
To: 'Miva Users List'
Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64


Jeff,

I would not expect such a violent attack and blackmailing, but
certainly you
have the right to express your feelings. I do not think I
deserved it. I
believe I gave the community more programming techniques and
tricks than
most of others.

As for the dynamic function calls - you are mistaken - I
published the first
method for dynamic function execution using filters as soon as I
found it
and before I wrote Vladdy. I did not bother publishing the
performance
improvement with the assembler hack, since firstly I had no
feedback or sign
of interest after publishing the first method, then the
functionality is
identical, and lastly it required modifying the assembler, hence
it was not
really a "clean" solution.

Am I creating a market advantage? Hmm, yes, probably yes, though
I believe
everybody does it. I guess you are also not going to publish all
your source
code. I've spent several days of experimenting and testing,
before I found
the right way and managed to get the binary reading working.
Although I love
to share various tricks with the community, this one was not easy
to find,
and the effort has to pay back first.

Maybe, if you had asked and insisted politely without offences, I
could had
changed my mind and published the trick, but I definitely won't
do it under
such blackmailing pressure.

Sorry for that,

Ivo
http://mivo.truxoft.com



-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Huber - Listmail


Ivo,

Since I, or any other developer that has released one or more
Miva Merchant modules could reasonably be considered your
"competitor", and since most of the people in that group, or I
assume most of them, could already easily release a Miva Merchant
software solution that attached files to email very easily and
thus compete with MmATTACH if we wanted to, I think it is a bad
excuse not to share the coding technique on this list.

This list has always been a place where people with a shared
interest for or in some cases a love of the Miva script language
can share experiences and work together to improve the ability of
all of use using the language.

There are a significant number of people that make a lot of money
selling Miva Merchant modules that learned a lot about how to
program from Myself and the other "core" members of this list and
they are our "competitors" now in one sense or another. I always
considered you one of the "core" members because I never saw you
hold back information based on some stupid market advantage
excuse, and because I thought that you, like many others, had a
fondness for the language that often goes beyond it's commercial
worth.

If you aren't going to share a technique of using the language
then it seems to me that maybe you are no longer really "One of
us". Maybe you have succumbed to the "dark side" and become "one
of them", whoever "them" is.

Many people who use Miva script only have Miva script as a
scripting option, they can't use other means, and for them, who
are not your "competitors" and who are the people who used to be
the only type of people on this list, knowing that technique
might be very nice.

The fact that you don't want to share it with the community
because of some supposed, and I believe non existent, market
advantage. makes me think less of you than I used to.

Especially when I combine this current event with the reaction
you had when Darren Ehlers posted his assembler file technique to
allow dynamic function calls and you quickly jumped in and said
that was an old obvious technique you had been using for a long
time with the Vladdy engine, and yet you had never seen fit to
publish the technique on this list. I guess that was another
market advantage that you didn't want to give up, and yet you
sure wanted to jump in and claim credit for the technique after
the fact.

I wonder if there are more of you than I realize and maybe that
is why we (Meaning Jeff Collins, myself, and a few others) found
it so hard to get support for the Miva script Open source
project.

When people have asked questions about things I have never
hesitated to answer and even provide source code, just because
what we were doing was a technique used in a Miva Merchant
module.

I am saddened by your attitude Ivo, adn even though it may not
mean anythign to you I am also dissapointed in you.

I hope you will see the error of your ways and "come back into
the light".

I shouldn't send this to the list because I am not in a calm and
rational frame of mind, but I usually avoid posting when I am
annoyed and upset for fear that I will say something I will
regret later.

In this case I don't care.

- Jeff Huber
President 4TheBest eCommerce Solutions
http://4TheBest.com
[email protected]
Office: 760-742-1469
Cell: 760-445-8454





-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ivo Truxa
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 4:04 PM
To: 'Miva Users List'
Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64


Yes, it _is_ possible to achieve it in plain Miva Script.
Unfortunately, I
cannot disclose the exact way, because one of my commercial
products is
based on the trick (MmATTACH) and disclosing it would endanger
its market
position. The trick is not quite simple; it uses secondary
effects of
unexpected functions, but it works fine.

In case of need I could provide a compiled library containing the
function,
though. Better told, I could disclose the way how to call the
function from
the MmATTACH module (after adjusting it little bit), when
installed on the
system.

Just please note that the encoding is not very fast and not well
suitable
for files bigger than few hundreds of kilobytes. Whenever
possible, using an
external encoder like MimeConv 2 freely available on my website
is a much
faster solution.

Ivo
http://mivo.truxoft.com




-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Huber - Listmail


Ahh, but if you can get the file into a string then you can use
it :)

We actually got very close to an algorithm that would let us
GUESS at the file contents enough that we could suck up files
using MvIMPORT and the encode them and manipulate them.

In fact we have successfully done it with a number of files but
it is not stable because if the guesses are wrong then everything
falls apart badly.

The problem of course is rooted in the fact that MvIMPORT is
specifically intended to import text files that are considered
one record per line, and a line is determined by the existence of
a LF, CR, or CRLF, which means that Miva eats some of the binary
data and you can't be sure which it eats.

I am holding out hope that we will get a way to read files in a
more raw manner into variables sometime after 5.o of Empresa is
released, and if we don't then we will be building and releasing
a file system function library for Miva Empresa VM because we
have some things planned for early next year that we HAVE to have
that functionality for and I have reasons why I want it all done
as Miva script rather than using PHP, Perl, C, etc.

- Jeff Huber
President 4TheBest eCommerce Solutions
http://4TheBest.com
[email protected]
Office: 760-742-1469
Cell: 760-445-8454



-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
[email protected]
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 2:09 PM
To: 'Claudiu Bischoff'; Miva Users List
Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64


Hi,
I was under the impression that crypto_base64_encode function
only worked on
strings-not files. How exactly do you use the function? -
crypto_base64_encode(l.image_url)???

Bill M.

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf
Of Claudiu Bischoff
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 9:47 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [meu] encode base64


Hi all,

I'm trying to encode some images in my automated e-mails (due to
the new
SP2 I cannot use web hosted images in my multimedia e-mails
anymore) and I
want to make this happen with the new miva crypto_base64_encode
function.
The only problem I have is that I don't have the correct result.
I'm
importing the image and encoding it to insert it in my multipart
e-mail
body. All is fine less the encoded result. I have encoded the
same image
with another software and I noticed that the begining of the
encrypted
result is ok.. but after a few characters my miva result change..

Miva encoded image result :
/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQEAYABgAAD/2wBDAAgGBgcGBQgHBwcJCQg=DBQ=DAsLDBkSE
w8UHRofHh0a
HBw=GDIhHCEyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMj IyMjIyMjIyMjIyM
jIyMjIyMjIy
Mv/AABEIAF8AXQMBIgACEQEDEQH/xAAfAAABBQEBAQEBAQAAAAAAAAAAAQI ..
etc .. etc

VB software encoded image result :
/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQEAYABgAAD/2wBDAAgGBgcGBQgHBwcJCQgKDBQNDAsLDBkSE
w8UHRofHh0a
HBwgJC4nICIsIxwcKDcpLDAxNDQ0Hyc5PTgyPC4zNDL/2wBDAQkJCQwLDBgNDRgyI
RwhMjIyMjIy
MjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMj IyMjIyMjL/wA ..
etc .. etc

The VB result is working well with Outlook and other e-mail
clients, but..
the miva one is not working at all (I have a broken image in the
e-mail
body)

Does anybody is aware of some encoding problems with the
crypto_base64_encode(data) function?

PS: I already looked on the Ivo website encoding solution but I
need a 100%
mivascript solution ( if there is one .. :s )

Thanks everybody
Claudiu

encode base64



Hey Jeff,

I just remembered- last time I needed to solve this problem, I
did in fact write a binary utilities function library. I'll post
source to our website shortly. :)

cheers,
james

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Huber - Listmail [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2004 2:47 AM
To: 'James Harrell'; 'Ivo Truxa'; 'Miva Users List'
Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64


James,

After the next release of the VM comes out if we don't see better
file functions either available or soon to be available we are
going to want and need such a library.

If that is the case I am going to have James build one unless
someone else does. By James I am referring to my older brother
James who is our director of development, who used to be at Miva,
not to be confused with the James that used to work at Miva but
then didn't work at Miva who works there again who was also known
affectionately as "evil James" while we were all at Miva
together, and whom you probably know better as Jas.

But, If you want to make one I would be happy to use it. :)

You are right though about the hard part being getting hosts to
install it.

I think though that if the functionality was documented and the
source code was available to cautious hosts so they could see the
code wasn't opening up a back doors and they could compile it
themselves, then hosts would either install the library, or
people that needed the functionality would leave those hosts to
go to other hosts just like they do now when the host won't
install the carts directory properly and won't install the
OpenSSL libraries and that causes people not to be able to use
modules that make use of the secure MvCALL features.

I believe that VM Libraries will become a much more commonly seen
thing in the next year. In fact I think some hosts will start
promoting that they support extended Miva functionality as yet
one more thing to differentiate them.

- Jeff Huber
President 4TheBest eCommerce Solutions
http://4TheBest.com
[email protected]
Office: 760-742-1469
Cell: 760-445-8454


-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of James Harrell
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 11:19 PM
To: Jeff Huber - Listmail; 'Ivo Truxa'; 'Miva Users List'
Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64


Ivo & Jeff,

I remember doing this once, so it's not like it's impossible
for other folks to figure out. I've since lost the source and
forgotten how I did it. Maybe instead of doing it again, I'll
just publish a binary utilities library some day. :) Of course,
the difficulty there is getting the hosts to install it...

cheers,
james

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]]On
Behalf Of Jeff Huber - Listmail
Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2004 1:57 AM
To: 'Ivo Truxa'; 'Miva Users List'
Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64


Ivo,

I never thought that me being disappointed in someone, or
thinking a little bit less of them than I used to was a form of
blackmail.

You don't have to do anything you don't want to.

I am just sorry that because of what I feel is a foolish and
mistaken belief on your part about some sort of market advantage
you are going to restrict your participation in the free exchange
of ideas about how to use the language that we all love.

Personally I never worry about trying to make techniques, or
methods of code use secret, in fact the source code of our main
pieces of retail software isn't even obfuscated at all. You can
download the source code and read it any time you want.

In fact anyone can download QwkTracker, QwkGuard, our AIM module
for Miva merchant, as well as QwkRed and a couple of other things
and look at the way we coded them buy going to
<A HREF ="http://www.4thebest.com/downloads/">http://www.4thebest.com/downloads/</A>

Of course you can't use them in a Miva Merchant store without a
license number unless you hack the code, and if you did that you
would be committing a crime and being a rotten person.

Also we have tons of custom and stand alone programming we have
written, and if one of those applications happened to contain a
method of doing something that I knew a member of this list
wanted to know how to do I wouldn't' hesitate in sending them
example code, or even the whole application.

I tend to give out source code, for demonstration purposes, and
advice very freely to members of the community. I have yet to
turn anyone away any Miva script developer that asked for advice
from me when they emailed me or called me on the phone, and I
have often sent people source code, including sending full blown
custom applications worth many thousands of dollars to them and
trusting that they would learn from them but not steal them.

I tend to trust people more than others think is wise but so far
in my life I have been rewarded by that many more times than I
have been hurt by it.

I guess we just think differently on this issue, and that is
fine.

I apologize for the "violent attack" I just always thought you
were of a similar mind as I am about the Miva script language,
and helping other developers, etc. I was wrong, and being shown
to be wrong in such an abrupt way made me respond rashly.

- Jeff Huber
President 4TheBest eCommerce Solutions
http://4TheBest.com
[email protected]
Office: 760-742-1469
Cell: 760-445-8454





-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ivo Truxa
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 6:42 PM
To: 'Miva Users List'
Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64


Jeff,

I would not expect such a violent attack and blackmailing, but
certainly you
have the right to express your feelings. I do not think I
deserved it. I
believe I gave the community more programming techniques and
tricks than
most of others.

As for the dynamic function calls - you are mistaken - I
published the first
method for dynamic function execution using filters as soon as I
found it
and before I wrote Vladdy. I did not bother publishing the
performance
improvement with the assembler hack, since firstly I had no
feedback or sign
of interest after publishing the first method, then the
functionality is
identical, and lastly it required modifying the assembler, hence
it was not
really a "clean" solution.

Am I creating a market advantage? Hmm, yes, probably yes, though
I believe
everybody does it. I guess you are also not going to publish all
your source
code. I've spent several days of experimenting and testing,
before I found
the right way and managed to get the binary reading working.
Although I love
to share various tricks with the community, this one was not easy
to find,
and the effort has to pay back first.

Maybe, if you had asked and insisted politely without offences, I
could had
changed my mind and published the trick, but I definitely won't
do it under
such blackmailing pressure.

Sorry for that,

Ivo
http://mivo.truxoft.com



-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Huber - Listmail


Ivo,

Since I, or any other developer that has released one or more
Miva Merchant modules could reasonably be considered your
"competitor", and since most of the people in that group, or I
assume most of them, could already easily release a Miva Merchant
software solution that attached files to email very easily and
thus compete with MmATTACH if we wanted to, I think it is a bad
excuse not to share the coding technique on this list.

This list has always been a place where people with a shared
interest for or in some cases a love of the Miva script language
can share experiences and work together to improve the ability of
all of use using the language.

There are a significant number of people that make a lot of money
selling Miva Merchant modules that learned a lot about how to
program from Myself and the other "core" members of this list and
they are our "competitors" now in one sense or another. I always
considered you one of the "core" members because I never saw you
hold back information based on some stupid market advantage
excuse, and because I thought that you, like many others, had a
fondness for the language that often goes beyond it's commercial
worth.

If you aren't going to share a technique of using the language
then it seems to me that maybe you are no longer really "One of
us". Maybe you have succumbed to the "dark side" and become "one
of them", whoever "them" is.

Many people who use Miva script only have Miva script as a
scripting option, they can't use other means, and for them, who
are not your "competitors" and who are the people who used to be
the only type of people on this list, knowing that technique
might be very nice.

The fact that you don't want to share it with the community
because of some supposed, and I believe non existent, market
advantage. makes me think less of you than I used to.

Especially when I combine this current event with the reaction
you had when Darren Ehlers posted his assembler file technique to
allow dynamic function calls and you quickly jumped in and said
that was an old obvious technique you had been using for a long
time with the Vladdy engine, and yet you had never seen fit to
publish the technique on this list. I guess that was another
market advantage that you didn't want to give up, and yet you
sure wanted to jump in and claim credit for the technique after
the fact.

I wonder if there are more of you than I realize and maybe that
is why we (Meaning Jeff Collins, myself, and a few others) found
it so hard to get support for the Miva script Open source
project.

When people have asked questions about things I have never
hesitated to answer and even provide source code, just because
what we were doing was a technique used in a Miva Merchant
module.

I am saddened by your attitude Ivo, adn even though it may not
mean anythign to you I am also dissapointed in you.

I hope you will see the error of your ways and "come back into
the light".

I shouldn't send this to the list because I am not in a calm and
rational frame of mind, but I usually avoid posting when I am
annoyed and upset for fear that I will say something I will
regret later.

In this case I don't care.

- Jeff Huber
President 4TheBest eCommerce Solutions
http://4TheBest.com
[email protected]
Office: 760-742-1469
Cell: 760-445-8454





-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ivo Truxa
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 4:04 PM
To: 'Miva Users List'
Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64


Yes, it _is_ possible to achieve it in plain Miva Script.
Unfortunately, I
cannot disclose the exact way, because one of my commercial
products is
based on the trick (MmATTACH) and disclosing it would endanger
its market
position. The trick is not quite simple; it uses secondary
effects of
unexpected functions, but it works fine.

In case of need I could provide a compiled library containing the
function,
though. Better told, I could disclose the way how to call the
function from
the MmATTACH module (after adjusting it little bit), when
installed on the
system.

Just please note that the encoding is not very fast and not well
suitable
for files bigger than few hundreds of kilobytes. Whenever
possible, using an
external encoder like MimeConv 2 freely available on my website
is a much
faster solution.

Ivo
http://mivo.truxoft.com




-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Huber - Listmail


Ahh, but if you can get the file into a string then you can use
it :)

We actually got very close to an algorithm that would let us
GUESS at the file contents enough that we could suck up files
using MvIMPORT and the encode them and manipulate them.

In fact we have successfully done it with a number of files but
it is not stable because if the guesses are wrong then everything
falls apart badly.

The problem of course is rooted in the fact that MvIMPORT is
specifically intended to import text files that are considered
one record per line, and a line is determined by the existence of
a LF, CR, or CRLF, which means that Miva eats some of the binary
data and you can't be sure which it eats.

I am holding out hope that we will get a way to read files in a
more raw manner into variables sometime after 5.o of Empresa is
released, and if we don't then we will be building and releasing
a file system function library for Miva Empresa VM because we
have some things planned for early next year that we HAVE to have
that functionality for and I have reasons why I want it all done
as Miva script rather than using PHP, Perl, C, etc.

- Jeff Huber
President 4TheBest eCommerce Solutions
http://4TheBest.com
[email protected]
Office: 760-742-1469
Cell: 760-445-8454



-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
[email protected]
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 2:09 PM
To: 'Claudiu Bischoff'; Miva Users List
Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64


Hi,
I was under the impression that crypto_base64_encode function
only worked on
strings-not files. How exactly do you use the function? -
crypto_base64_encode(l.image_url)???

Bill M.

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf
Of Claudiu Bischoff
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 9:47 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [meu] encode base64


Hi all,

I'm trying to encode some images in my automated e-mails (due to
the new
SP2 I cannot use web hosted images in my multimedia e-mails
anymore) and I
want to make this happen with the new miva crypto_base64_encode
function.
The only problem I have is that I don't have the correct result.
I'm
importing the image and encoding it to insert it in my multipart
e-mail
body. All is fine less the encoded result. I have encoded the
same image
with another software and I noticed that the begining of the
encrypted
result is ok.. but after a few characters my miva result change..

Miva encoded image result :
/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQEAYABgAAD/2wBDAAgGBgcGBQgHBwcJCQg=DBQ=DAsLDBkSE
w8UHRofHh0a
HBw=GDIhHCEyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMj IyMjIyMjIyMjIyM
jIyMjIyMjIy
Mv/AABEIAF8AXQMBIgACEQEDEQH/xAAfAAABBQEBAQEBAQAAAAAAAAAAAQI ..
etc .. etc

VB software encoded image result :
/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQEAYABgAAD/2wBDAAgGBgcGBQgHBwcJCQgKDBQNDAsLDBkSE
w8UHRofHh0a
HBwgJC4nICIsIxwcKDcpLDAxNDQ0Hyc5PTgyPC4zNDL/2wBDAQkJCQwLDBgNDRgyI
RwhMjIyMjIy
MjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMjIyMj IyMjIyMjL/wA ..
etc .. etc

The VB result is working well with Outlook and other e-mail
clients, but..
the miva one is not working at all (I have a broken image in the
e-mail
body)

Does anybody is aware of some encoding problems with the
crypto_base64_encode(data) function?

PS: I already looked on the Ivo website encoding solution but I
need a 100%
mivascript solution ( if there is one .. :s )

Thanks everybody
Claudiu

Announcing MvBinary (was RE: encode base64)



New free library, Copernicus MvBinary Utilities:
<A HREF ="http://www.copernicusllc.com/products/source/">http://www.copernicusllc.com/products/source/</A>

Provides the following binary I/O utilities:
simport/fimport: script/datadir binary file import into variable
sexport/fexport: script/datadir binary file export from variable

Not sure why Miva Script doesn't have these to begin with, but
I guess that's why they gave us the API. :)

cheers,
James

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]On
Behalf Of James Harrell
Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2004 12:29 PM
To: Jeff Huber - Listmail; 'Ivo Truxa'; 'Miva Users List'
Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64


Hey Jeff,

I just remembered- last time I needed to solve this problem, I
did in fact write a binary utilities function library. I'll post
source to our website shortly. :)

cheers,
james

Announcing MvBinary (was RE: encode base64)



Hi James

That's great news .. What about the license? I didn't saw a specification if
we can use the library for commercial purpose (not to redistribute or
re-sell, but to use internally for commercial purpose ... I mean for our
website)

Best regards,
Claudiu

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]On
Behalf Of James Harrell
Sent: mercredi 13 octobre 2004 19:21
To: James Harrell; Jeff Huber - Listmail; 'Ivo Truxa'; 'Miva Users List'
Subject: [meu] Announcing MvBinary (was RE: [meu] encode base64)


New free library, Copernicus MvBinary Utilities:
<A HREF ="http://www.copernicusllc.com/products/source/">http://www.copernicusllc.com/products/source/</A>

Provides the following binary I/O utilities:
simport/fimport: script/datadir binary file import into variable
sexport/fexport: script/datadir binary file export from variable

Not sure why Miva Script doesn't have these to begin with, but
I guess that's why they gave us the API. :)

cheers,
James

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]On
Behalf Of James Harrell
Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2004 12:29 PM
To: Jeff Huber - Listmail; 'Ivo Truxa'; 'Miva Users List'
Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64


Hey Jeff,

I just remembered- last time I needed to solve this problem, I
did in fact write a binary utilities function library. I'll post
source to our website shortly. :)

cheers,
james

Announcing MvBinary (was RE: encode base64)



Hey Claudiu,

Absolutely- feel free to use it for your own site- that's what
it's for. The current non-redistribution/non-re-sell license that's
in there is just our stock license that the lawyers made for all
of our products so we retain all rights.

Down the road (Jeff Huber already hit me up on this too <grin>)
we'll probably look into a much less restrictive license for these
sorts of libraries, perhaps even an OSI approved Open Source license.
Though selection of that license will be very deliberate, and I
wanted to make this available to you quickly. I like Open Source,
but I dislike forks. :)

cheers,
james

-----Original Message-----
From: Claudiu Bischoff [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2004 2:44 PM
To: James Harrell; 'Miva Users List'
Subject: RE: [meu] Announcing MvBinary (was RE: [meu] encode base64)


Hi James

That's great news .. What about the license? I didn't saw a specification if
we can use the library for commercial purpose (not to redistribute or
re-sell, but to use internally for commercial purpose ... I mean for our
website)

Best regards,
Claudiu

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]On
Behalf Of James Harrell
Sent: mercredi 13 octobre 2004 19:21
To: James Harrell; Jeff Huber - Listmail; 'Ivo Truxa'; 'Miva Users List'
Subject: [meu] Announcing MvBinary (was RE: [meu] encode base64)


New free library, Copernicus MvBinary Utilities:
<A HREF ="http://www.copernicusllc.com/products/source/">http://www.copernicusllc.com/products/source/</A>

Provides the following binary I/O utilities:
simport/fimport: script/datadir binary file import into variable
sexport/fexport: script/datadir binary file export from variable

Not sure why Miva Script doesn't have these to begin with, but
I guess that's why they gave us the API. :)

cheers,
James

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]On
Behalf Of James Harrell
Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2004 12:29 PM
To: Jeff Huber - Listmail; 'Ivo Truxa'; 'Miva Users List'
Subject: RE: [meu] encode base64


Hey Jeff,

I just remembered- last time I needed to solve this problem, I
did in fact write a binary utilities function library. I'll post
source to our website shortly. :)

cheers,
james