Re: [boost] Re: Re: Re: [program_options] Unicode support

From: Pavol Droba (droba_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-04-07 13:29:40

Hi Volodya

After reading all the discussion about the complexity of the unicode and considering
your arguments, I withdraw the idea of fully templated implementation. 

However, maybe something in between might be feasible. Actualy your interface is quite close.
What I would like to propose, is to have a core part working with an arbitrary
encoding (implementation defined) and a set of templated interfaces.

So insted of writing unicode::whatever as in your proposal, "whatever" will be thin templated
layer, that will convert application specific data to the format understood by the core library
and vice versa. This layer should be fully dependant on locales to do the required conversion. 
These can be suplied by imbue().

This would simplify interface from the user perspective. User will not have the
use (IMHO unnatural) unicode prefix, interface will be flexible and open for any reasonable
encoding, yet the core library will have all the properties you have declared as imporatant.
(compiled separately, working with a single encoding and etc.)

Does this seem reasonable to you?

Regards,

Pavol