[Openmcl-devel] Unicode in OpenMCL

[Pascal J.Bourguignon]

Gary Byers writes:
> > > We obviously need to be able to do I/O to and from other encodings
> > > (and to be able to use various encodings with the FFI), and it's
> > > fairly clear that we'd want to have lisp objects of type
> > > UTF-8-ENCODED-STRING (etc.)
> >
> > The need for UTF-8-ENCODED-STRING is not clear to me.
> > Is it for FFI?
> 
> I'm not sure if "encoded strings" really need to be supported.  You
> don't necessarily need to expose any objects that might be used to
> convert between a lisp string and some external representation (for
> the FFI or the filesystem), but there might be some argument for doing
> so (e.g., caching the result of an expensive translation for
> efficiency.)
> 
> There might be other reasons ...

Of course. In my application, I have to work with strings encoded on
little-endian 16-bit words: "iLekt ih!s"
It would be very nice if this encoding would be supported directly by
lisp string.

In case it was not evident, this was encapsulated in <sarcastic></sarcastic>.

UTF-8 is an ENCODING, not a CHARSET!
You have to distinguish the notion of character from the notion of code.
Please reread the first section of Chapter 13 of CLHS.
http://www.lispworks.com/reference/HyperSpec/Body/13_a.htm

-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__                     http://www.informatimago.com/

There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not
want merely because you think it would be good for him. -- Robert Heinlein