Decoding SAMLRequest.

Hello list,

   From the spec, for HTTP-Resirect binding, the SAMLRequest is DEFLATE-compressed, then Base 64 encoded, then URL encoded.

   I do this in Python for decoding the SAMLRequest to get the AuthnRequest. Was wondering if this will always work? Is there any better alternative in C / Python.

  

def decode_authn_request(authn_request):
    """ AuthnRequest is always deflated, base64 encoded and url-escaped.

      :Parameters:
          -`authn_request`: AuthnRequest

      :Return:
           The decoded AuthnRequest if successful else empty string.
    """
    decoded = ''
    a = urllib.unquote(authn_request)
    a = a.strip('SAMLRequest=')

    try:
           decoded = zlib.decompress(base64.b64decode(a), -8)
    except (zlib.error, TypeError):
        try:
               decoded = zlib.decompress(base64.b64decode(a))
        except (zlib.error, TypeError):

               pass
    return decoded

Thanks,

Bhaskar.