Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
97 lines (74 loc) · 2.87 KB

Identifiers.md

File metadata and controls

97 lines (74 loc) · 2.87 KB

Data Specification Identifiers

What are Data Values and Data Specification Identifiers?

Data Values (usually identified by data) are a method of describing a resource so it can be parsed properly. Data can come in the form of:

  • Strings
  • Raw Bytes
  • Raw Strings (Not Escaped)
  • Base64 Encoded Strings
  • Local File Paths
  • Remote File Paths

Each of these options might be able to be the source of data used in a particular command.

By default, each command that uses a Data Value will attempt to automatically determine the type of data described. Many times this comes down to Strings and File Paths and some commands will attempt to autodetect Base64 strings. In order to explicitly tell the command what the data type is, we can use Data Specification Identifiers to assist.

Many commands may take multiple Data Value types in order to augment their runtime.

Identifiers

Data Specification Identifiers are a type declariation added to the beginning of a string to indicate what type it represents.

There are two ways to use Data Specification Identifiers:

  • <type>$<data>
  • <type>"<data>"

The type value is a single character that indicates the type. Here are the type indicators supported:

  • r Raw Strings or Raw Bytes: Data will be DIRECTLY interpreted as it's explicit form, meaning that newlines \n and other control chars DO NOT need to be escaped and will act like they were un-escaped. This indication also can be used with the b indicator interchangeably.
  • b Raw Bytes: Data will be DIRECTLY interpreted as a sequence of bytes. You do not need to escape any values and may also use hex codes to signify other data values, such as \xFF and \x40.
  • x Remote File Path: Data will be DIRECTLY interpreted as a raw REMOTE (on client) path. This path will NOT be parsed and instead will be expanded on the client side.
  • p Local File Path: Data will be DIRECTLY interpreted as a raw LOCAL path. This will cause any environment variables to be resolved and will result in an error if it does not exist.
  • e Base64 Encoded String: Data will be DIRECTLY interpreted as a Base64 encoded string value. It will be decoded directly into bytes. This will result in an error if the Base64 encoding is invalid or incorrect.

As long as the Data Value begins with one of these characters and is either surrounded in double quotes "" or has a single dollar sign $ after the type character, it will be evaluated.

Examples

r"Hello\\nWorld!"

Raw String, this will result in:

Hello
World!

e"c3VwZXJzZWNyZXQK"

Base64 Encoded String, this will result in:

supersecret
(Note the newline at the end).

b$\x41\x42\x43\x44\x45\x46

Raw Bytes, this will result in:

ABCDEF