• A Case for JSON6

  Apr 19, 2025 • Share

  Just a required follow up for the previous post: JSON5 sucks too, like any other possible format. Just look at this:

  {
      certificate: "\
  -----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----\n\
  MIIBVQIBADANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQEFAASCAT8wggE7AgEAAkEAt6wGEsfdarMo9KET\n\
  sNv9gpBWkGfhIq3/Jhr14+3d8TXprmTk/XWReo5DA3+SbB7ebF3xUtN/4K5lUkcG\n\
  1AbdywIDAQABAkBuMbfnFqAhvuFoeydMKYAcECrPMnOhEdENdIlnuTM53kBf18f/\n\
  KaWRWv8ViuZ31GpArY8cBzj0YG30vE49Il8ZAiEA7PpotzcpjNcMKnwEBm3q0c6H\n\
  3RRZD6i32Q/vXcQBeB0CIQDGaj4BJ/fuqiHvKzetfjhpOD+sYr3VDgEyjTcojhzZ\n\
  BwIgTBRYafmbrUuc7EbERAwlxxW3KJLPxOc1nsou3rt+fUECIQCjBGUfJAyDDUtG\n\
  KpbbN0n3wRwncRUQuCnps7Zu3pv6/wIhAIIcKty7O0T7auctlpMSdyw6vp0w818x\n\
  namFjg3cbBs4\n\
  -----END PRIVATE KEY-----\n"
  }
  

  Read more…

  Category: Misc • Tags: configuration, json, json5, json6

• Is JSON5 a better JSON?

  Apr 16, 2025 • Share

  Yes it is, at least when it comes to configuration files.

  As I said earlier, JSON is a good serialization language but a terrible config language. JSON5 builds on its strong sides: it's backwards compatible with JSON and is still a subset of JavaScript and it is still relatively easy to parse. Then it adds all the good stuff like unquoted keys, trailing commas, and a must-have thing for any config, comments. For me it has only two real downsides, both really minor. First is, as most config-oriented languages, it's tricky for automated modification, a feature it shares with TOML and YAML. The second one is JSON6, while ES6 syntax sugar is nice, it's just a 15th competing standard, and the worst, competing with itself.

  Category: Misc • Tags: configuration, json, json5

• Ignoring SSL Errors in Chrome

  May 7, 2024 • Share

  Very useful when you are developing anything WebAuthn related.

  google-chrome --ignore-certificate-errors --user-data-dir=$HOME/tmp/chrome-dev
  

  --ignore-certificate-errors will disable any SSL warnings like self-signed certs.

  --user-data-dir will isolate this unsafe Chrome instance from your regular browsing.

  Category: Misc • Tags: chrome, ssl

• Generating UUIDv7 in PostgreSQL

  Jan 20, 2024 • Share

  But what about Postgres? We can do it too. Hopefully generators for new UUID versions will be added to uuid-ossp but it is not yet the case.

  The easiest way for now is to use pgcrypto, so let's start with that:

  create extension pgcrypto;
  

  Now port the solution from the MySQL post:

  select
      lpad(to_hex((extract(epoch from now()) * 1000)::bigint), '12', '0') ||
      '7' || -- version
      substr(encode(gen_random_bytes(2), 'hex'), 2) ||
      to_hex((floor(random() * 4) + 8)::int) || -- variant bits
      substr(encode(gen_random_bytes(8), 'hex'), 2)
      as uuid;
  

  Like with MariaDB, Postgres doesn't care about dashes on insertion, so this value can be directly applied to a field with the uuid type.

  And again, to make it a formatted value, use a type cast:

  select
      (lpad(to_hex((extract(epoch from now()) * 1000)::bigint), '12', '0') ||
      '7' ||
      substr(encode(gen_random_bytes(2), 'hex'), 2) ||
      to_hex((floor(random() * 4) + 8)::int) ||
      substr(encode(gen_random_bytes(8), 'hex'), 2))::uuid
      as uuid;
  

  And to have a bytea value, use decode:

  select
      decode(
          lpad(to_hex((extract(epoch from now()) * 1000)::bigint), '12', '0') ||
          '7' ||
          substr(encode(gen_random_bytes(2), 'hex'), 2) ||
          to_hex((floor(random() * 4) + 8)::int) ||
          substr(encode(gen_random_bytes(8), 'hex'), 2),
          'hex'
      ) as uuid;
  

  Category: Misc • Tags: postgres, sql, uuid, uuidv7

• Generating UUIDv7 in MySQL and MariaDB

  Jan 20, 2024 • Share

  A quick way to generate UUIDv7 in MySQL 8 and MariaDB 11:

  select
      concat(
          -- Use NOW(3) to get milliseconds
          lpad(hex(unix_timestamp(now(3)) * 1000), 12, '0'),
          '7', -- version
          substr(hex(random_bytes(2)), 2),
          hex(floor(rand() * 4 + 8)), -- variant bits
          substr(hex(random_bytes(8)), 2)
     ) as uuid;
  

  This will generate a hex string that can be inserted into MariaDB's UUID type as is, dashes will be added automatically.

  If you need it as a binary value, wrap with unhex:

  select
      unhex(concat(
          lpad(hex(unix_timestamp(now(3)) * 1000), 12, '0'),
          '7',
          substr(hex(random_bytes(2)), 2),
          hex(floor(rand() * 4 + 8)),
          substr(hex(random_bytes(8)), 2)
      )) as uuid;
  

  If you specifically need a valid RFC 4122 string representation, use a bin formatter function (MySQL) or a type cast (MariaDB):

  -- MySQL
  select
      bin_to_uuid(unhex(concat(
          lpad(hex(unix_timestamp(now(3)) * 1000), 12, '0'),
          '7',
          substr(hex(random_bytes(2)), 2),
          hex(floor(rand() * 4 + 8)),
          substr(hex(random_bytes(8)), 2)
      ))) as uuid;
  
  -- MariaDB
  select
      cast((concat(
          lpad(hex(unix_timestamp(now(3)) * 1000), 12, '0'),
          '7',
          substr(hex(random_bytes(2)), 2),
          hex(floor(rand() * 4 + 8)),
          substr(hex(random_bytes(8)), 2)
      )) as uuid) as uuid;
  

  UPD: Postgres can do it too!

  Category: Misc • Tags: mariadb, mysql, sql, uuid, uuidv7

• Running 32-bit Images in GitLab CI

  Sep 7, 2023 • Share

  A thing that was not obvious to me and relatively hard to google was a way to run a 32-bit docker image in the GitLab CI. Docker itself has --platform param but it is not exposed to the .gitlab-ci.yml file.

  Luckily it's easy for the official Docker registry. Apart from auto-selection images, it also contains per-architecture image repos with distinct package names. You only need to specify a desired architecture prefix: like amd64/php or i386/php.

  Example:

  .test:
    script:
      - composer update
      - vendor/bin/phpunit
  
  test-64bit:
    extends: .test
    stage: test
    image: amd64/php:8
  
  test-32bit:
    extends: .test
    stage: test
    image: i386/php:8
  

  or using the matrix:

  test:
    stage: test
    image: ${ARCH}/php:${PHP_VERSION}
    script:
      - composer update
      - vendor/bin/phpunit
    parallel:
      matrix:
        - PHP_VERSION:
            - '7'
            - '8'
          ARCH:
            - amd64
            - i386
  

  Category: Misc • Tags: gitlab, gitlab ci, i386

• Resizing small EFI partition

  Apr 17, 2023 • Share

  It started with the firmware failing to update because the EFI partition was low on free space. (Dell, why do you need 70 MB on the EFI while also making it as small as 150 MB at the same time?) Well, resizing the partition is the obvious solution except it ended in a wonderful error message:

  GNU parted cannot resize this partition to this size. We're working on it!
  

  (spoiler: they're not)

  In my case the GPT partition was resized, just the filesystem was not grown, I only needed to reformat it.

  Read more…

  Category: Misc • Tags: efi, fat32, linux, parted, til, windows

• GPL Incompatibility

  Feb 22, 2023 • Share

  "GPL incompatibility" of a FOSS license is not a problem of the incompatible license, it's the problem of the GPL. Most permissive licenses and file-based copyleft licenses can be used together in a project without any conflict and that's great. It's GPL that doesn't like any neighbors.

  Category: Misc • Tags: copyleft, gnu gpl, opensource

• LGPL is a bad practice

  Jan 2, 2023 • Share

  TL;DR: Don't use LGPL, avoid library-based copyleft in general.

  The closest acceptable no-brainer replacement should be GNU GPL with Classpath Exception, but the concept of library-based copyleft itself is flawed. It's better to consider MPL (less copyleft) or full GPL (more copyleft).

  Read more…

  Category: Misc • Tags: copyleft, lgpl, licensing, opinion

• Python Type Hints

  Jun 22, 2022 • Share

  Python type hints are garbage.

  Category: Misc • Tags: python, short, types

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