[fpc-devel] Explanation about code page-aware AnsiStrings

[Jonas Maebe]

Hi,

Large parts of the returning discussions about code page-aware  
AnsiStrings are related to the fact that many people don't how they  
work. For this reason I've created an overview that explains the rules  
that are followed by the RTL/compiler at http://wiki.freepascal.org/FPC_Unicode_support 
  (only Sections 1 to 3; 4 and later are older and mostly either  
incomplete or wishful thinking).

Note that this is not a discussion document, and apart from some notes  
about potential future changes, errors or unknown major Delphi- 
incompatibilities, the behaviour as described there will not change.  
The behaviour has been defined to maximise both backward compatibility  
with existing FPC code (written for FPC 2.6.x and earlier) and with  
Delphi 2009+. Automagic string types that solve world hunger are  
outside the scope.


Jonas