[pass] Replace base64 in cygwin?

[Stephen Schoun]

On 04/27/2014 12:11 PM, Stephen Schoun wrote:
> On 04/27/2014 09:28 AM, Matthew Cengia wrote:
>> On 2014-04-27 06:26, Stephen Schoun wrote:
>>> Hi everyone,
>>>
>>> This is my first post to the password-store listserv.  Pass works
>>> great for me on Linux, but I have been struggling to get it to work
>>> on Windows.  One of the issues I came across was the difficulty in
>>> finding an executable of the "base64" program for
>>> cygwin/mingw/msys/msysgit anywhere on the internet and I don't
>>> really want to compile it myself.  I'm actually using msysgit.
>>>
>>> However, I found a workaround that seems to do the job.  If I
>>> understand correctly, base64 is used to strip newlines when writing
>>> and reading from the clipboard manager.
>> Hi Stephen,
>>
>> No, the purpose of base64 is to explicitly *prevent* the stripping of
>> trailing newlines from the clipboard. Without it, the last newline of
>> the clipboard's contents is removed, and that may be unintended. I 
>> *think*
>> Jason has written an alternative to the base64 method which should be
>> out soon.
>>
> Hi Matthew,
>
> Thanks for replying.  Are you sure that the desired effect is to 
> *prevent* stripping of newlines?  When a password is copied to the 
> clipboard, I want to be able to paste that password without having it 
> include a newline character.  When pasting logon information in some 
> web pages, for example, browsers might interpret the newline character 
> as an actual character of the password, or they might interpret the 
> newline as a request to submit the page before I am ready.
>
> Best regards,
>
> --Stephen
Hi again Matthew,

I think you were right.  The "base64" command is only used when 
preserving or restoring the previous contents of the clipboard, and 
therefore it *does prevent* stripping of newlines.  When copying the 
password to the clipboard, however, the "echo -n" command strips 
newlines and "base64" is not used.

Best regards,

--Stephen Schoun