[fpc-devel] Trying to understand the wiki-Page "FPC Unicode support"

[Hans-Peter Diettrich]

Jonas Maebe schrieb:
> On 26/11/14 23:41, Hans-Peter Diettrich wrote:
>> In this case the implementation is "compiler specific", somewhat
>> different from "undefined" (in a RawByteString):
>> "CP_NONE: this value indicates that no code page information has been
>> associated with the string data. The result of any explicit or implicit
>> operation that converts this data to another code page is undefined."
>>
>> IMO the result is well defined: it's the string with the encoding of
>> that "other" codepage.
> 
> Unless you actually tested this on all platforms and noted that is the
> case, you cannot state this. And if you would actually test it, you
> would discover that it is wrong
> (http://bugs.freepascal.org/view.php?id=22501#c61238 ).

Bugs obviously violate some specification/definition, else "it's not a 
bug, it's a feature" ;-)

> As mentioned in a previous discussion: don't use "IMO" ("in my opinion")
> when talking about testable facts. A testable fact is either true or
> false, opinions do not enter the picture.

We're just talking about interpretations, not facts.


>> An "undefined" result, as I understand it, would
>> mean "the result can be anything, unrelated to the function input".
> 
> Which is 100% correct.

Do you see any use for such function definitions, except in random 
generators?

>> IMO a better wording should be found, that does not cause the current
>> obvious confusion of some readers.
> 
> The confusion only occurs for readers that do not believe what is written.

Such statements come only from writers that do not believe that their 
words can be understood in various ways ;-)

DoDi