Re: Standard Library Interest?

["Robert I. Eachus" <rieachus@comcast.net>]

chris wrote:

> XML and Unicode support don't quite fit within the language standard 
> because they change more frequently, but IMO it'd be nice to have some 
> standardised support for both of these things.  Note with unicode I am 
> thinking about things like normalisation, etc.

Huh?  Read the RM:   <i>The predefined type Wide_Character is a 
character type whose values correspond to the 65536 code positions of 
the ISO 10646 Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP). Each of the graphic 
characters of the BMP has a corresponding character_literal in 
Wide_Character. The first 256 values of Wide_Character have the same 
character_literal or language-defined name as defined for Character. The 
last 2 values of Wide_Character correspond to the nongraphic positions 
FFFE and FFFF of the BMP, and are assigned the language-defined names 
FFFE and FFFF. As with the other language-defined names for nongraphic 
characters, the names FFFE and FFFF are usable only with the attributes 
(Wide_)Image and (Wide_)Value; they are not usable as enumeration 
literals. All other values of Wide_Character are considered graphic 
characters, and have a corresponding character_literal.</i>

The BMP character set is identical to Unicode.  There are additional 
functions which are part of the Unicode definition.  Some of them can be 
found in A.3.2 and A.4.7. If there is something you think should be 
added, let me know.  (I already have a "little list" for Ada 0Y.) Also, 
don't get misled by some people (including me! ;-) saying that the Ada 
standard has a slow revision cycle.  Technically, the standard is 
considered for revision every five years, but in practice if there are 
problems, the ARG will fix them as soon as possible.  Unicode/ISO10646 
is a perfect case in point.  I could tell you the (highly boring) 
changes that have been made in ISO 10646 and Unicode since they 
converged.  (If you are really interested, look here: 
http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode4.0.0/

Just to give you a flavor:  "1,226 new character assignments were made 
to the Unicode Standard, Version 4.0 (over and above what was in Unicode 
3.2). These additions include currency symbols, additional Latin and 
Cyrillic characters, the Limbu and Tai Le scripts; Yijing Hexagram 
symbols, Khmer symbols, Linear B syllables and ideograms, Cypriot, 
Ugaritic, and a new block of variation selectors (especially for future 
CJK variants). Double diacritic characters were added for dictionary use."

-- 
                                                     Robert I. Eachus

"Quality is the Buddha. Quality is scientific reality. Quality is the 
goal of Art. It remains to work these concepts into a practical, 
down-to-earth context, and for this there is nothing more practical or 
down-to-earth than what I have been talking about all along...the repair 
of an old motorcycle."  -- from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle 
Maintenance by Robert Pirsig