Re: [boost] [general] What will string handling in C++ look like inthe future [was Always treat ... ]

Subject: Re: [boost] [general] What will string handling in C++ look like inthe future [was Always treat ... ]
From: Beman Dawes (bdawes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2011-01-19 21:22:17

On Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 2:42 PM, Alexander Lamaison <awl03_at_[hidden]>wrote:

> On Wed, 19 Jan 2011 19:42:25 +0200, Peter Dimov wrote:
>
> > Alexander Lamaison wrote:
> >
> >> By changing the OS-default encoding to assume char* string was UTF-8.
> >
> > You keep talking about "OS-default encoding", but there's no such thing.
> > POSIX operating systems do not assume anything about the encoding of
> char*
>
> I was under the impression that Linux changed from interpreting char* as
> being in a multitude of different encodings to being in UTF-8 by default.
>

Peter is correct, with a slight editorial clarification: "POSIX operating
systems [API's] do not assume anything about the encoding of char*".

When I was designing Boost Filesystem V3, several of the POSIX liaison folks
were kind enough to confirm this with me in person. Some of the shell
utilities do have notions of encoding, but not the API's.

Linux is a "POSIX-like" operating system, but there are places where it
deviates from the POSIX spec. So because Linux does something a certain way
doesn't necessarily mean that POSIX specifies it that way.

--Beman