Messages in this thread |  | | | Date | Fri, 17 Apr 1998 19:13:11 -0700 (PDT) | | From | Alex Belits <> | | Subject | Re: unicode (char as abstract data type) |
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On Fri, 17 Apr 1998, Albert D. Cahalan wrote:
> > > > Neither Sun, nor Apple or Microsoft have really converted anything > > to Unicode. > > Microsoft uses Unicode in the kernel calls. Note that the C library > can still support dumb 8-bit apps as well as any other C library.
See below what it does with those calls.
> > > Having NTFS filesystem where filenames are already for many years > > supposed to be in Unicode, but used by all software with the > > assumption that only 8 bits of every character matter doesn't > > mean much, so this direction is dead, too. > > It is not dead. The Unicode support in the system allows for a > future world without 8-bit apps. The transition may take a decade. > When the transition is done, there won't be so much reencoding > between apps and the kernel.
In a decade Unicode most likely will be in the same place where EBCDIC is now.
> >> I certainly don't want to see 8-bit kernel calls on Merced. > > > > Then you won't see vi there either. > > Oh? The last time I heard, vi accessed system calls via libc.
But in what encoding will it represent that to the terminal?
> Very few apps care about the kernel interface. I can think of > strace and maybe gdb. > > With the right libc, you could even pretend the kernel used > UTF-8 for the system calls. >
[skipped]
> That is the applications. This is the kernel mailing list. > We have a library called "libc" that provides an interface > between the applications and the kernel. Applications can > still see filenames in KOI-8 if you so desire. (you won't > care what libc does to non-KOI-8 filenames because you won't > have any such names on your disk)
How will it know that it's koi8 if charset labeling will be eliminated (and this is the whole point of Unicode -- to avoid need of charset labeling by providing some flat space)?
> Think about the consequences of UTF-8 at the system call level: > Every system call that uses text must be first converted to UTF-8. > This burden is with us forever. Meanwhile, Windows and MacOS can > avoid conversion costs after the world converts to UCS2. > > The world _will_ convert too. As much as you may hate it, you > must realize that when Sun, Microsoft, and Apple agree... > It is only a matter of time -- perhaps a decade.
They say it, but they don't _do_ it -- and they can't do that anyway.
-- Alex
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