[fpc-devel] Unicode and UTF8String

[Michael Schnell]

> avoids automatic
> conversion between types as much as possible.
>   
I feel that it's a goody of a strongly typed language that automatic 
type conversions can be done by creating the appropriate code statically 
instead of having this embedded in the objects as with variants.

If doing a simple assignment "a := b;" types are either converted 
appropriately or a compiler error is generated.

All integer and real types are converted automatically. If you try to do 
"myInteger := myString;" you get a compiler error. But if you do 
"myANSIString := myUTF8String;" the compiler generates an assignment 
without a conversion, even though the types are provided by the system 
(not by the user) and named according to the possible internal coding. 
(We don't need to discuss why this is like that, the discussion is about 
if it should stay this way.)

-Michael