[fpc-devel] Unicode and Lazarus

[Michael Schnell]

> Maybe a real UTF8String?
>   
Does this mean teach the compiler tell the type UTF8String from the type 
ANSIString and do the appropriate conversion automatically (and do the 
assignment of constants appropriately) ?

I suppose this in fact would solve a lot problems for Lazarus.

If on top of that the user can choose - e,..g. on a per-unit or even "on 
the fly" base - which string type he wants to use when he just writes 
"String" (ANSIString, UTF8String or WideString, with WideString again 
choosable as UTF16String or UCS2String, and the types "Char" and 
"WideChar"  selected appropriately (you name it), it would be easily 
usable.


Regarding Lazarus LCL, it of course would be advantageous if it could be 
compiled and used with any String type as it's API, so that conversions 
can be minimized according to the project (needing locale independence 
or not, which OS, optimize for speed or for size (e.g. Win-CE or 
embedded Linux projects, needing WideString due to extended string 
operations in the user code, ...)

-Michael