Re: [boost] Re: Re: New design proposal for boost::filesystem

From: Patrick Bennett (patrick.bennett_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-08-23 11:56:35

Ferdinand Prantl wrote:

>Hi, 
>
>I would prefer to use the standard types like std::string and char * as
>well.
>
>However, I do not like much the idea about a fixed encoding, UTF-8 or
>something else. It is possible to use any encoding in std::string and even
>in std::wstring.
>
>What do you think about imbuing and codecvt-like approach in
>boost::filesystem for the names of the files? 
>
I don't (personally) care for it.  More and more libraries and standards 
are using UTF-8 (for good reason) these days.  It's a nice, simple, and 
flexible encoding.

>It has a standard interface for the content of streams, it could serve also the filenames. Not all
>platforms support UTF-8 filenames, sometinmes could it serve as name mangling support.
>  
>
Win32 doesn't support UTF-8 filenames natively.  That's why 
boost::filesystem would have to convert t o/from UCS-2 along Win32 
interface boundaries.
If you're concerned about other platforms, you shouldn't be.  
boost::filesystem currently works only with latin encodings in ascii 
strings so no functionality would be taken away.
The UTF-8 representation of ascii strings is identical, so if you 
already use ascii strings, nothing will change, and nothing will break.  
If you want your application to be runnable in multiple countries 
though, an operating system which boost::filesystem has translations 
defined for would be required.  Linux is UTF-8 natively (assuming the 
right environment variable is set), so boost::filesystem would just pass 
everything through as-is.  The Win32 poet would have to make some simple 
conversions (Windows even has built-in functions to perform this 
conversion) .  Other platforms might have to have make other conversions 
to/from UTF-8, but assuming that platform supports Unicode at all, this 
is a no-brainer.

Patrick Bennett