[fpc-devel] Unicode support in RTL - Roadmap

Daniël Mantione daniel.mantione at freepascal.org
Fri Nov 21 17:16:19 CET 2008



Op Fri, 21 Nov 2008, schreef Michael Schnell:

> If your point is that there is no way to allow for legacy code to be used 
> with a "String" type that holds UTF8 code and that it is not possible (or 
> desirable) to allow for code used in simple occasions that is understandable 
> to someone who does not want to go into the complete depth of the UTF8, I can 
> totally accept this.

Legacy code that assumes ASCII can be used in UTF-8. Code that needs to 
deal with higher code points needs to be rewritten and the user must 
understand the full UTF-8 spec. There is no other way to hide this.

> But in that case the normal user just should not use UTF8 (but WideStrings 
> that in most "European/American" Projects can be considered to be UCS2 coded 
> (This is the way that D2009 seems to go).

I agree with your observation.

> With that of course the UTF8 API of LCL is not at all desirable,.

LCL had its reasons to go UTF8.

Daniël


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