Issue 180503.1: Usage suggestion for LEB128 padding
Section 7.6, pg 222
PROBLEM DESCRIPTION
Values in the LEB128 format are currently required to be minimum
length; in some cases it may be advantageous to pad or align data
by inserting leading zero or sign-extension bytes that don't affect
the decoded value.
Discussion in a committee meeting revolved around whether to impose
limits on producers, or requirements on consumers. The proposed
change specifically does not imply that a producer could pad with
*extra* bytes, but could simply not *remove* bytes from an ordinary
integer value; this avoids any suggestion that we could end up with
arbitrarily long LEB128 strings.
RESOLUTION
Section 7.6, pg 221, line 12, replace "be zero; discard them."
with "be zero, which may be discarded."
pg 222, line 13, add a new non-normative paragraph:
*Some producers may choose to insert padding or alignment bytes by
retaining (not discarding) one or more high-order bytes that would
not affect the decoded value.*
--
2021-04-19 Revised. Previous version: http://dwarfstd.org/issues/180503.1-1.html
2021-05-17 Accepted.
