Signaling EOF in the streaming case is unspecified (or too unclear) about encoding

[inexorabletash]

Just decode(). An example using streaming would probably help. e.g. from https://github.com/inexorabletash/text-encoding

  var string = "", decoder = TextDecoder(encoding), buffer;
  while (buffer = next_chunk()) {
    string += decoder.decode(buffer, {stream:true});
  }
  string += decoder.decode(); // finish the stream

[hsivonen]

OK. The spec algorithm for decode() is very far from making this clear.

[annevk]

Note that per the specification you signal EOF by a call to decode() that does not have the stream member set to true. You can still pass in additional input at that point. At what point does the algorithm confuse you?

[annevk]

Would the confusion be removed once we make the change I suggested in #13?

[hsivonen]

The definition of the flags is separate from the algorithm, so it's easy to get confused by thinking that the streaming flag is an algorithm-local variable (as opposed to being a field of the object), since the corresponding JS argument is to the decode method and not to the constructor.

Other than that, I guess the general problem is that the last two top-level steps of the algorithm require examining the implications of the definitions they reference and, thus, the algorithm isn't obvious when taking a look without reading all the definitions and thinking through their implications.

The change suggested in #13 would alleviate the confusion. To remove confusion completely, substep 2 of major step 5 could use an informative note that points out that streamability is based on omitting EOF handling in that step and leaving flags such that the step 1 is skipped on the next call.

[hsivonen]

Oh, and for authors, it would be helpful to have a usage note that says in the streaming case you call decode 0 to N times with {stream:true} and then once without and if you don't have input for that last call, you should just omit both arguments.

[annevk]

Thank you for the clear suggestions @hsivonen! @inexorabletash, I ended up using your example too.