[fpc-devel] Unicode and UTF8String

[Marco van de Voort]

In our previous episode, Mattias Gaertner said:
> 
> > and it avoids unneeded conversions. 
> 
> I understand it 'avoids unneeded conversions' *inside* the RTL, by
> adding implicit conversions to the code accessing the RTL.

It allows the user to stay conversion free, and have some control over how
many conversions are being done. 

It is way better than making this decision for him, and forcing him to an
encoding he normally wouldn't use in the first place.
 
> > I'd be fine using utf-16 on all platforms :)
> 
> Me2. At least for the file functions.

I would too. If all platforms had chosen it. But they didn't. 

> > Not yet decided though I'd make them RTLString as well.
> 
> :(
> TStrings is dog slow and the only reason, why it was still reasonable
> was assigning strings was only reference counting.
> If TStrings uses a platform dependent string, this is a big
> performance problem.

Because exactly why? See also my previous msg.