[fpc-pascal] Summary of Unicode Strings Debate

[Jonas Maebe]

Michael Van Canneyt wrote on Wed, 11 May 2016:

> On Wed, 11 May 2016, Mazo Winst wrote:
>
>> 3 - The dynamic behavior of the string type regarding to the platform was
>> not introduced by FPC 3. In the previous versions of FPC, the string type
>> depends on the platform too.
>
> The string type does not depend on the platform.

Indeed, it only depends on the syntax mode and {$h+/-} setting (and,  
since FPC 3.0, {$modeswitch unicodestrings}

> The only thing that depends on the platform is the default encoding  
> used in an AnsiString.
>
> But that was true in FPC 2.6.4 as well: On windows that would have  
> been CP_ACP, on unix UTF8. Now this is simply settable.

On Unix it was whatever is configured in the environment via the  
LC_ALL/LC_CTYPE/LANG environment variable, and only if a widestring  
manager is used (such as cwstring). Otherwise it defaulted to ASCII.  
None of this changed in FPC 3.0 indeed.

The rest of what you said is correct.


Jonas