Add utility VIs for encoding and decoding data as strings to prevent unintended filtering

[Tom-McQuillan]

Suggestion by @HunterJKI
I had a use case where I wanted to send a path as a state machine argument, and for ...reasons... the files had # symbols in them. These get truncated out by the comment filter, and I don't think there is a way around it short of writing a specific character replacer.

Here is an example with specific url style encoding, this works but would be nice to have a general solution with escape characters.

Note from @drjdpowell
A possible general solution is to use base64url encoding for the parameter. This avoids all possible control characters except '_' and '-'. I have base64url functions in JSONtext if anyone wants to copy them.

If fact, one should be able to flatten any datatype and then base64url encode, and thus be able to send any datatype as a parameter, not just paths.

[HunterJKI]

Note: This vilib function may have some related help.

[nevstop]

Path in one case. The string argument format does not support using cluster/reference/.. as arguments. Here is what I implemented in CSM. I recommend creating a pair of VIs to convert between variant and visible hex string. This way, all data types can be supported. Hope it could help.

Usage:

Convert Data to HexStr.vi

Convert HexStr to Data.vim

Example: