[openpgp] "OpenPGP Simple"

[David Shaw]

On Mar 16, 2015, at 5:15 PM, David Leon Gil <coruus at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Re Jon's comment above: The five-octet, new-format thing is what the End-to-End extension does.
> 
> On Monday, March 16, 2015, Werner Koch <wk at gnupg.org> wrote:
> On Mon, 16 Mar 2015 19:12, singpolyma at singpolyma.net said:
> 
> > Yes.  Last time I checked, gnupg < 2 (which is still the default on
> > most of my systems) only generates old-style headers, whereas my
> 
> That depends on how you invoke gpg and whether the new packer headers
> are required.  That is required for PGP-2 compatibility.
> 
> Is there an option to completely disable this?

Not in the current code, but you can of course patch it.

> Relatedly, is there any option to not use new-format partial lengths?

A partial length is needed to handle content as a stream - say some program that generates gigabytes of data (like a backup).  Something large enough that you really don't want to have to buffer the whole thing before encrypting it.

> Partial lengths are really a nuisance to parse.

No argument there...

David