Re: [HACKERS] possible encoding issues with libxml2 functions - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

On Wed, Apr 05, 2017 at 10:53:39PM +0200, Pavel Stehule wrote:
> 2017-03-17 4:23 GMT+01:00 Noah Misch <noah@leadboat.com>:
> > On Sun, Mar 12, 2017 at 10:26:33PM +0100, Pavel Stehule wrote:
> > > 2017-03-12 21:57 GMT+01:00 Noah Misch <noah@leadboat.com>:
> > > > On Sun, Mar 12, 2017 at 08:36:58PM +0100, Pavel Stehule wrote:
> > > > > 2017-03-12 0:56 GMT+01:00 Noah Misch <noah@leadboat.com>:
> > > > Please add a test case.
> 
> I am sending test case.
> 
> I am afraid so this cannot be part of regress tests due strong dependency
> on locale win1250.

Right.  Based on that, I've distilled this portable test case:

-- Round-trip non-ASCII data through xpath().
DO $$
DECLARExml_declaration text := '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>';degree_symbol text;res xml[];
BEGIN-- Per the documentation, xpath() doesn't work on non-ASCII data when-- the server encoding is not UTF8.  The
EXCEPTIONblock below,-- currently dead code, will be relevant if we remove this limitation.IF
current_setting('server_encoding')<> 'UTF8' THEN    RAISE LOG 'skip: encoding % unsupported for xml',
current_setting('server_encoding');   RETURN;END IF;
 
degree_symbol := convert_from('\xc2b0', 'UTF8');res := xpath('text()', (xml_declaration ||    '<x>' || degree_symbol ||
'</x>')::xml);IFdegree_symbol <> res[1]::text THEN    RAISE 'expected % (%), got % (%)',        degree_symbol,
convert_to(degree_symbol,'UTF8'),        res[1], convert_to(res[1]::text, 'UTF8');END IF;
 
EXCEPTION-- character with byte sequence 0xc2 0xb0 in encoding "UTF8" has no equivalent in encoding "LATIN8"WHEN
untranslatable_characterTHEN RAISE LOG 'skip: %', SQLERRM;-- default conversion function for encoding "UTF8" to
"MULE_INTERNAL"does not existWHEN undefined_function THEN RAISE LOG 'skip: %', SQLERRM;
 
END
$$;

> > > > Why not use xml_parse() instead of calling xmlCtxtReadMemory()
> > > > directly?  The answer is probably in the archives, because someone
> > > > understood the problem enough to document "Some XML-related functions
> > > > may not work at all on non-ASCII data when the server encoding is not
> > > > UTF-8. This is known to be an issue for xpath() in particular."
> > >
> > > Probably there are two possible issues
> >
> > Would you research in the archives to confirm?
> >
> > > 1. what I touched - recv function does encoding to database encoding -
> > > but document encoding is not updated.
> >
> > Using xml_parse() would fix that, right?
> >
> 
> It should to help, because it cuts a header - but it does little bit more
> work, than we would - it check if xml is doc or not too.

That's true.  xpath() currently works on both DOCUMENT and CONTENT xml values.
If xpath() used xml_parse(), this would stop working:
 SELECT xpath('text()', XMLPARSE (DOCUMENT '<!DOCTYPE foo []><x>bar</x>'));

> One possible fix - and similar technique is used more times in xml.c code
> .. xmlroot

> +   /* remove header */
> +   parse_xml_decl(string, &header_len, NULL, NULL, NULL);

> -       doc = xmlCtxtReadMemory(ctxt, (char *) string, len, NULL, NULL, 0);
> +       doc = xmlCtxtReadMemory(ctxt, (char *) string + header_len, len -

> another possibility is using xml_out_internal - that is used in XMLTABLE
> function - what was initial fix.
> 
> xml_out_internal uses parse_xml_decl too, but it is little bit more
> expensive due call print_xml_decl that has not any effect in this case
> (where only encoding is interesting) - but it can has sense, when server
> encoding is not UTF8, because in this case, xmlstr is not encoded to UTF8 -
> so now, I am think the correct solution should be using xml_out_internal -
> because it appends a header with server encoding to XML doc

As you may have been implying here, your patch never adds an xml declaration
that bears an encoding.  (That is because it passes targetencoding=0 to
xml_out_internal().)  If we were going to fix xpath() to support non-ASCII
characters in non-UTF8 databases, we would not do that by adding xml
declarations.  We would do our own conversion to UTF8, like xml_parse() does.
In that light, I like this parse_xml_decl() approach better.  Would you update
your patch to use it and to add the test case I give above?


This change can make things worse in a non-UTF8 database.  The following
happens to work today in a LATIN1 database, but it will cease to work:

SELECT xpath('string-length()', ('<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>' ||    '<x>' || chr(176) ||
'</x>')::xml);

However, extracting actual text already gives wrong answers, because we treat
the UTF8 response from libxml2 as though it were LATIN1:

SELECT xpath('string()', ('<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>' ||    '<x>' || chr(176) || '</x>')::xml);

I plan to back-patch this.  The documentation says "Some XML-related functions
may not work at all on non-ASCII data when the server encoding is not
UTF-8. This is known to be an issue for xpath() in particular."  Your patch
fixes a case where even a UTF8 database mishandles non-ASCII data.  (Sometimes
it mishandles the data silently.  Other times, it raises an error.)  It's
worth further breaking a case where we already disclaim support to repair a
supported case.  Other opinions?