[fpc-devel] Unicode resource strings

[Hans-Peter Diettrich]

Aleksa Todorovic schrieb:

> The problem here is that libraries floating around (including RTL and
> FCL) use different string types (UnicodeString, UTF8String,
> AnsiString), so the question is - is it possible to (re)write those
> libraries in a generic way (RawByteString?), so they can work with any
> string type?

RawByteStrings are not a solution, because the specific encoding of 
every parameter has to be checked inside such a subroutine, and specific 
handling of all encodings has to be implemented there. It's easier to 
expect strings of a specific encoding, and let the compiler insert 
eventual conversions automatically. Then overloaded subroutines can be 
provided, for the 3 common encodings (CP_ACP, CP_UTF8 and UTF-16).

What I'm missing is a true binary string encoding, which never is 
subject to automatic conversions. Why implement TBytes or similar 
classes for data buffers, with zero comfort compared to standard 
stringhangling operators/functions?

DoDi