[fpc-devel] FPC 2.3.1 seems a mixed mess with Unicode support

[Thaddy]

Marco van de Voort wrote:
>> This should be transparent for the non-library user code....
>>     
>
> It is. Widestring always worked more or less, on both FPC,Kylix and Delphi.
> But the COM backed versions (FPC2.2+ (?) and Delphi) suffered from
> performance problems
As I wrote it should be opaque ( = transparent, btw).
At least for windows I overcame most of the problems that widestring is 
using COM by writing a simple COM Delphi memorymanager replacement years 
ago in pre-userspace. Thus all reference counting (at least at block 
level, but also for delphi strings) is managed by COM. It is still 
available at my website. And yes, it is rather slow. But string 
manipulation is slow anyway.
I had to do this for COM production code written in Delphi to work more 
reliable. The solution had good reviews from then Borland techies.