buffer: consider deprecated raws as valid encoding

[thefourtheye]

Even though raws is a deprecated encoding, it is still valid as per
ParseEncoding in node.cc.

Refer https://github.com/nodejs/node/blob/v4.0.0/src/node.cc#L1214-L1218

cc @trevnorris

[brendanashworth]

Or it could be removed, it's been deprecated forever: 07792af.

[mscdex]

Are there any npm modules that use the raws encoding still?

[ChALkeR]

A quick grep over 1/3 of npm packages showed no signs of 'raws' or "raws" (except for one mention in a wordlist file, but that's irrelevant).

Note that my package set includes only the last version of packages, and may be biased (it's actually packages that were published with npm2+). I have a new and complete set (still only the last versions, though), but I did not prepare a searchable form of those yet.

[thefourtheye]

@ChALkeR Can you please grep raw as well? I'll remove them if that is also not used.

[ChALkeR]

@thefourtheye 'raw' is a common word. What context should I check?
«Buffer» context:

j/jkurwa-0.4.20.tgz/lib/models/Priv.js:264:    bufZZ = new Buffer(pointZ.x.buf8(), 'raw');
j/jkurwa-0.4.20.tgz/examples/decrypt.js:11:        data = new Buffer(u8, 'raw');

I will prepare a searchable file of the current versions of all packages in the coming days and will publish it, so that everyone could perform those tests. The expected file size is around 3 GiB compressed with lzop, and around 15 GiB uncompressed, grep time around a minute.

[thefourtheye]

Thanks @ChALkeR :-) Let's hear what @trevnorris thinks.

[trevnorris]

Whatever change is made, make sure it's reflected in the native code.

I say just remove it (and raw). Been deprecated as long as I can remember, and never seen it used.

[thefourtheye]

Closing in favor of #2859