[fpc-devel] TStringList.LoadFromFile and SavetoFile - file encoding support

[Sergei Gorelkin]

Graeme Geldenhuys wrote:

> The point is that you will probably have a File Open dialog that gives
> the filename to TMemo.LoadFromFile. The the file dialog could collect
> the filename and optional encoding to pass on to LoadFromFile.
> 
> Even if TStringList has the optional encoding parameter, prior source
> code should still work as-is without the encoding parameter. No code
> would be broken.
> 
> I agree with Marco that auto detecting encodings is probably not a
> good idea in the RTL, but at least enable the option of a encoding
> parameter in TStringList, which could help things along. As in the
> case of the bug report.
> 

There is no need for TStrings.LoadFromFile method at all.
The container is one matter, and its serialization is a separate one. 
Just introduce a decoding stream and you can write e.g:

Strings.LoadFromStream(TDecodingStream.Create(TFileStream.Create('myfile'), 
'cp866', 'utf-8'));

This approach isn't limited to decoding, you can do decrypting, 
compressing, etc.
In reality, of course, you have to finalize all the stuff - that means 
typing more than one line. C++ language that automatically finalizes 
on-stack objects is more friendly in this respect.

Regards,
Sergei