Weird characters in place of terminal escape sequences on Windows Console

[BuriedInTheGround]

Environment

• OS: Windows 10 Pro
• age version: v1.1.1

What were you trying to do

I was trying to encrypt a file with a passphrase.

What happened

On both Windows PowerShell and cmd.exe, terminal escape sequences do not work by default. As a result, I obtained the following output, containing weird characters on screen.

As a side note, I actually discovered this issue while trying to use the same functions as yours to ask for a passphrase. I strongly believe that this behavior is present since the introduction of escape sequences in 349ed5e. This commit post-dates age version v1.0.0, so it may be the case that not many people have encountered this issue, but I think that it would negatively impact the UX for Windows users from now on (indeed, v1.1.0 and v1.1.1 just came out).

I'm going to make a PR to address this issue as a follow-up.

P.S.: sorry for not disclosing this issue before the v1.1.0 release, I didn't see it coming!

[clach04]

Still an issue with age v1.2.0. NOTE rage 0.11.0 does NOT have this issue.

Occurs for passphrase encryption both when entering a password and also auto-generating a passphrase. Spurious control characters prepended to messages that are displayed in Windows CMD:

C:\code\enc\age>age.exe --version
v1.2.0

C:\code\enc\age>age.exe  --decrypt -i testdata\example_keys.txt testdata\example.age | age.exe --encrypt --passphrase -o testdata\copy_example.age
Enter passphrase (leave empty to autogenerate a secure one):
?[F?[Kage: using autogenerated passphrase "collect-pool-uphold-bacon-movie-medal-whisper-goose-spider-obvious"

C:\code\enc\age>age.exe  --decrypt -i testdata\example_keys.txt testdata\example.age | age.exe --encrypt --passphrase -o testdata\copy_example.age
Enter passphrase (leave empty to autogenerate a secure one):
?[F?[KConfirm passphrase:
?[F?[K

On screen the "?" look like left-facing arrows ◀️ . See original screenshots/report.

Code that triggers this appears to be clearLine()

age/cmd/age/tui.go

Line 74 in 176e245

CUI = "\033[" // Control Sequence Introducer

Best thing right now is either ignore it or use rage. I tried using mintty/cash and age does NOT work at under that (just hangs), rage works but uses GUI pinentry for password. You can use mintty/cmd, that does work and does avoid garbage control characters.