Group names containing vertical bar cannot be used in "exclude groups from sharing"

[phil-davis]

Steps to reproduce

1. create a group named vertical|bar
2. put some users in it (just for fun)
3. admin, settings, sharing, enable "Exclude groups from sharing"
4. In the box, type the group vertical|bar and then exxit the box (to save)
5. refresh the page

Expected behaviour

Group vertical|bar should be shown in the list of excluded groups.

Also note: on the user management page, the users in group vertical|bar do not show.

Actual behaviour

Groups vertical and bar are shown as separate group names.

Server configuration

Current core stable10

Note: because of issue #31739 the whole "exclude groups from sharing" UI is broken in core master
So you currently have to use stable10 to see the issue reported here.

[phil-davis]

How many of these "special character in group name" problems are there?
Would anyone ever actually use a vertical bar in a group name?
Should we ban the vertical bar as a character in a group name?
But maybe such group names are valid in LDAP, and so they could come from an LDAP server anyway.

[ownclouders]

GitMate.io thinks possibly related issues are #10307 (Exclude Groups from Sharing), #20473 (If a user belongs to a group that has not been set in the excluded groups from sharing, he can share files), #25320 ('Exclude groups from sharing' doesn't work if user belongs to more groups), #17346 (Exclude group from sharing after a share was created), and #10983 (Exclude with groups cannot work with groups containing commas).

[phil-davis]

Implode with vertical bar separator here:
https://github.com/owncloud/core/blob/master/settings/Panels/Admin/FileSharing.php#L111

[phil-davis]

PR #10968 introduced the vertical bar implode code, which is better than the previous comma separator.

The answer to my questions #31836 (comment) will determine the way forward.

[PVince81]

From what I heard, all kinds of weird characters can come from various flavors of LDAP servers.

We still do have the option to say "yes, maybe, but OC doesn't support that".

Now with the latest discussions related to special chars in groups, let's include @tomneedham @butonic in the discussion...

[PVince81]

the question could also be rephrased: is there any safe character that is guaranteed to never appear in a LDAP group name ? such char could then be used as separator

[VicDeo]

use a regex to split the value
For backend it's trivial. For frontend https://stackoverflow.com/a/14334054

groups with \| are rarer than with an ordinary pipe

[phil-davis]

And when there is a group with \ then escape that. So 4 groups group1 back\slash vertical|bar and oh\|heck becomes:
group1|back\\slash||vertical\bar|oh\\\|heck
or some similar escaping scheme.

[stale]

This issue has been automatically closed.