Re: UTF-8 in strings - a bug?

["Björn Persson" <spam-away@nowhere.nil>]

Ludovic Brenta wrote:

> You can learn 
> about which encoding is currently in effect using the getlocale(3) 
> library call.

My understanding from the manpages is that you must first call 
setlocale(LC_ALL, "") to import the locale settings from the environment 
into the program, and then you call either nl_langinfo or localeconv to 
get information about the locale. I don't seem to have a manpage for 
getlocale.

> I am not aware of a thick binding to either getlocale or iconv (both 
> are in glibc).  If you write such a binding, it would be nice to make 
> it GMGPL.

There are lots of things I'd want to write. And now I can't stop 
thinking about how such a binding might be written ... :-/

> In the general case, though, you do not necessarily have to transcode 
> unless you want to manipulate the string data with algorithms that 
> depend on the internal encoding.

Of course. I just wish the OS interface wouldn't use String when the 
encoding is undefined. Better define a type System_String or something, 
and state explicitly that this type contains strings in whatever 
encoding is used in the environment.

> GtkAda does this explicitly with a separate type, UTF8_String.

That's good. What bothers me is when String is used for anything so you 
don't know what you really have in your strings. The C programmers can 
keep that kind of confusion to themselves. Separate types is clearly the 
way to go.

-- 
Björn Persson

jor ers @sv ge.
b n_p son eri nu