Cryptopals Set 2 Challenge 15 // no repo for this challenge // no demo for this challenge

Step 1: We’ve Already Done This (but let’s talk abt it)

The challenge is to write a function that takes a string and determines if it is PKCS#7 (doc) padded. If it is, then we remove the padding; if it is not, we throw an error.

function chopPKCS7(padArr) {
  // accepts padded hex array, returns non-padded array
  if (!Array.isArray(padArr) || !padArr.length) {
    return null;
  }
  let last = Number(parseInt(padArr[padArr.length - 1], 16).toString(10));
  if (last > 0 && last < 256) {
    let possibleSlice = padArr.slice(padArr.length - last);
    let lastCh = padArr[padArr.length - 1];
    if (last >= padArr.length) {
      throw new Error(
        "Padding >= array length! Are you sure you wanna do that?"
      );
    } else if (!possibleSlice.every((c) => c == lastCh)) {
      throw new Error("String is not PKCS7-padded.");
    }
    return padArr.slice(0, padArr.length - last);
  }
  return padArr;
}

This function takes an array and checks the last character. It converts that character into a number and, if that number is between 0 and 256, it checks with every (mdn docs) to see if that number of characters (possibleSlice) from the end of the string are all equal to the same value: namely, the length of the padding characters. If they are, then the numbers are removed and the chopped array is returned. If they aren’t, then an error is thrown. Done!