[fpc-pascal] The new Delphi compatible unicode string

[Jonas Maebe]

On 04 Jan 2011, at 13:20, Juha Manninen wrote:

> The Java guy would ask if there is any common unicode string type. I  
> would say
> "Not yet but it's coming, but we can't use it because we must  
> support the old
> compiler versions".

Java's string type is roughly equivalent to FPC's UnicodeString: it  
always uses UTF-16. If your source material uses a different encoding,  
you have to load it into an array of bytes and then create a new  
string based on the data in that array and the encoding that you  
explicitly specify. Afterwards, the string remains UTF-16 and if you  
want the original (or some other) encoding back, you again have to  
explicitly convert it to an array of bytes with an explicitly  
specified encoding. There are no automatic string encoding conversions  
in Java.

Also, in general discussions based on "how can I prove that language X  
is at least as good as, or better than, language Y" end in flame wars,  
so please don't go there.


Jonas