MIME::QuotedPrint encode_qp emits LF instead of requested CRLF

Open Beginner friendly
#1,341 0 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

Assessment

Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
1-3 hours
Newbie friendliness
88/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Clearly specified
Activity status
Active
Tech stack
java, perl
Domain
backend

Research direction

Start at MIMEQuotedPrint.encodeQuotedPrintable, where ordinary input newlines are emitted, and compare that handling with the existing use of eol for soft breaks. Add focused coverage for CRLF input and requested CRLF output, then run the upstream t/basic.t suite with both ./jperl and ./jperl --interpreter; done means exact CRLF bytes and all 13 tests pass.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

area:cpan-port area:unicode bug

Summary

PerlOnJava's bundled MIME::QuotedPrint provider emits LF line endings when
encode_qp is asked to use CRLF. This breaks Email::MIME::Encodings's
quoted-printable encoder, which is required to preserve RFC email line
endings.

Reproduction

Run the upstream Email::MIME::Encodings 1.317 test suite:

./jperl t/basic.t
./jperl --interpreter t/basic.t

The suite reports one failure in enc qp:

not ok 8 - enc qp
got:      'This is a test\nof various MIME=3Dstuff.=\n'
expected: 'This is a test\r\nof various MIME=3Dstuff.=\r\n'

The failure reproduces on both the JVM and interpreter backends. System Perl
passes the complete upstream suite: 13 tests successful.

A minimal provider-level reproducer is:

./jperl -MMIME::QuotedPrint -e 'my $x="a\r\nb"; my $y=encode_qp($x,"\r\n"); print unpack("H*",$y),"\n"'

The expected encoded bytes begin with 610d0a (a\\r\\n), but PerlOnJava
returns 610a (a\\n).

CPAN failure

The CPAN random-tester run 20260910-101908-8428 recorded FAIL for
Email::MIME::Encodings 1.317:

1/13 subtests failed; 1/2 test programs failed

The failing test is the distribution's stable t/basic.t test, assertion 8.
The distribution itself is pure Perl and has no external service or native
library prerequisite.

Technical cause

Email::MIME::Encodings::codec passes the requested EOL to
MIME::QuotedPrint::encode_qp:

return $sub->($what, $eol);

The PerlOnJava implementation in MIMEQuotedPrint.encodeQuotedPrintable
hardcodes LF when it encounters an input newline:

output.append(currentLine).append("\\n");

It should preserve the requested eol value (CRLF in this case). The same
implementation already uses eol for soft line breaks, so handling ordinary
newlines consistently with that parameter appears to be the missing piece.

Impact

Email and MIME libraries using PerlOnJava's quoted-printable provider can
produce non-conforming line endings even when explicitly requesting CRLF.
This can affect message serialization, canonicalization, signatures, and
interoperability with MIME consumers.

Suggested fix and regression coverage

Update MIMEQuotedPrint.encodeQuotedPrintable to append the requested EOL for
preserved newlines, while retaining existing binary-mode and CRLF-normalizing
behavior. Add a focused regression test that checks the exact bytes returned
by encode_qp for CRLF input and requested CRLF output, and run the
Email::MIME::Encodings test under both execution backends.

Dominant language
Perl
Stars
64
Forks
6
Avg merge
5h 25m
Merged PRs (30d)
157

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

More from fglock/PerlOnJava

All issues in fglock/PerlOnJava

Similar issues

More Perl issues

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.