I/O incorrectly assumes a Unicode terminal

[zzo38]

Version

v6.11.0

Platform

Linux zzo38computer 3.2.0-87-generic #125-Ubuntu SMP Fri Jun 19 08:25:10 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Subsystem

No response

What steps will reproduce the bug?

• Set LANG=C and a non-Unicode terminal.

• Input non-Unicode text in the REPL, or using the readline interface (the example in the documentation is suitable to reproduce this bug).

• Enter strings with escapes in the REPL such as "\x8A" or "\x9A".

• (I don't know what console.table does, since I do not have that version of Node.js.)

How often does it reproduce? Is there a required condition?

If the locale and/or terminal emulator is not Unicode, e.g. set the environment variable LANG=C.

What is the expected behavior?

My suggestions are:

• The problem with input probably cannot be fixed for the REPL. (But, for the readline function, this could be made an option.)

• For output in the REPL, check for a non-Unicode locale and always display escaped codes in that case, like it already does for ASCII control codes. (This also improves security in the case of homoglyphs, etc; this way, you can change the locale if you are concerned about such a thing.)

• For output using console.log, the existing behaviour is probably acceptable; if you need non-Unicode output then you can use the other functions to output instead, so probably this does not need to be fixed.

What do you see instead?

• Input in the REPL that does not match the input that I typed (it replaces my input with a Unicode replacement character, which is then displayed incorrectly).

• Broken output (if it contains any non-ASCII characters and is not being redirected to a file).

• (I do not know what console.table does, since I do not have that version of Node.js)

Additional information

The locale will not always be Unicode; you should not incorrectly assume that it is.

[mscdex]

node 6.x has been unsupported for a very long time. Have you tried with a modern, supported version of node?

[juanarbol]

node 6.x has been unsupported for a very long time. Have you tried with a modern, supported version of node?

I agree with this; is this issue reproducible in a supported version?

[bnoordhuis]

Closing, no follow-up.