weirdness with hipchat

so for work we use hipchat which is pretty cool for what we use it for, but i discovered a little issue when copy/pasting configs in there to send to coworkers; it adds extra bytes to the file.

example:
this is what was originally passed through the wire :

2013-02-19 22:19:25,144 INFO    [config] Logging Configured
2013-02-19 22:19:25,144 INFO    [config] ROOT_PATH: /home/vagrant/real_outland
2013-02-19 22:19:25,206 INFO    [config] init called, test mode: False

but, lets look at it through od (octal, decimal, hex, ASCII dump) with “-c” switch (-c Output C-style escaped characters. Equivalent to -t c.)

first on osx using iterm2 and tmux:

0000000    2   0   1   3   -   0   2   -   1   9       2   2   :   1   9
0000020    :   2   5   ,   1   4   4       I   N   F   O      **  **
0000040       **  **       [   c   o   n   f   i   g   ]       L   o   g
0000060    g   i   n   g       C   o   n   f   i   g   u   r   e   d  \n
0000100    2   0   1   3   -   0   2   -   1   9       2   2   :   1   9
0000120    :   2   5   ,   1   4   4       I   N   F   O      **  **
0000140       **  **       [   c   o   n   f   i   g   ]       R   O   O
0000160    T   _   P   A   T   H   :       /   h   o   m   e   /   v   a
0000200    g   r   a   n   t   /   r   e   a   l   _   o   u   t   l   a
0000220    n   d  \n   2   0   1   3   -   0   2   -   1   9       2   2
0000240    :   1   9   :   2   5   ,   2   0   6       I   N   F   O
0000260   **  **          **  **       [   c   o   n   f   i   g   ]
0000300    i   n   i   t       c   a   l   l   e   d   ,       t   e   s
0000320    t       m   o   d   e   :       F   a   l   s   e  

now in gentoo using urxvt:

0000000   2   0   1   3   -   0   2   -   1   9       2   2   :   1   9
0000020   :   2   5   ,   1   4   4       I   N   F   O 342 200 202
0000040 342 200 202       [   c   o   n   f   i   g   ]       L   o   g
0000060   g   i   n   g       C   o   n   f   i   g   u   r   e   d  \n
0000100   2   0   1   3   -   0   2   -   1   9       2   2   :   1   9
0000120   :   2   5   ,   1   4   4       I   N   F   O 342 200 202
0000140 342 200 202       [   c   o   n   f   i   g   ]       R   O   O
0000160   T   _   P   A   T   H   :       /   h   o   m   e   /   v   a
0000200   g   r   a   n   t   /   r   e   a   l   _   o   u   t   l   a
0000220   n   d  \n   2   0   1   3   -   0   2   -   1   9       2   2
0000240   :   1   9   :   2   5   ,   2   0   6       I   N   F   O 342
0000260 200 202     342 200 202       [   c   o   n   f   i   g   ]
0000300   i   n   i   t       c   a   l   l   e   d   ,       t   e   s
0000320   t       m   o   d   e   :       F   a   l   s   e  

you see the “** **” & “342 200 202” that are being added in some of the lines ?

here is the same thing when the hipchat client is removed all together:

0000000   2   0   1   3   -   0   2   -   1   9       2   2   :   1   9
0000020   :   2   5   ,   1   4   4       I   N   F   O
0000040   [   c   o   n   f   i   g   ]       L   o   g   g   i   n   g
0000060       C   o   n   f   i   g   u   r   e   d  \n   2   0   1   3
0000100   -   0   2   -   1   9       2   2   :   1   9   :   2   5   ,
0000120   1   4   4       I   N   F   O                   [   c   o   n
0000140   f   i   g   ]       R   O   O   T   _   P   A   T   H   :
0000160   /   h   o   m   e   /   v   a   g   r   a   n   t   /   r   e
0000200   a   l   _   o   u   t   l   a   n   d  \n   2   0   1   3   -
0000220   0   2   -   1   9       2   2   :   1   9   :   2   5   ,   2
0000240   0   6       I   N   F   O                   [   c   o   n   f
0000260   i   g   ]       i   n   i   t       c   a   l   l   e   d   ,
0000300       t   e   s   t       m   o   d   e   :       F   a   l   s
0000320   e

this wreaked havoc on our chef knife.rb files and was giving us a couple of weird errors.

when in doubt, od -c.