[boost] Re: Re: Any interest in adding unicode support to boost?

From: Erik Wien (wien_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-10-20 14:03:11

> It's good to have one string class for library interoperability reasons. 
> Otherwise library A would demand utf8_string, library B would demand 
> utf16_string, and library C would demand utf32_string. No matter which one 
> you choose, you'll pay a price. (This doesn't change even if you spell 
> utf8_string as string<utf8>.)

That is true. Though the strings of different encodings should be assignable 
to each other, libraries taking references to encoded_strings would need 
some conversion to be done.

We have a similar problem today with basic_string<char> and 
basic_string<wchar_t>, and I think it could also be solved in a way that is 
very similar to what is done in the <string> header. If we typedef a 
unicode_string or something as encoded_string<utf16>, and promote that as 
THE string class, most users would use that as their primary string 
representation, and simply be oblivious to the underlying encoding. (A good 
thing.)

Advanced user could (just like we do today with basic_string) choose to 
support multiple encodings by templating their own functions on encoding as 
well.