Identifies a PDF Password, expressible either as a string or a byte sequence.
In revisions up to version 1.e Expansion 3, the mapping between a string and the bytes corresponding to the password was poorly specified, meaning that the safest manner in which to specify a password was via a byte array. With 1.7 expansion 3, a still slightly problematic mapping was given for the Standard encryption algorithms through to version 4, and a very well specified mapping for the new version 5 encryption.
So, for passwords specified in versions up to and including 4, a byte[] representation is the most accurate, but not necessarily the most convenient manner to provide passwords. For version 5, allowing passwords to be specified as Strings will be the preferred mechanism. Rather than specify two interfaces whenever a password can be provided - one for byte[] and one for String - we express the password as a class. This class can also offer a best guess at a String representation for a password for encryption versions up to and including 4.
@author Luke Kirby | |