Re: [boost] boost filesystem path as utf-8?

Subject: Re: [boost] boost filesystem path as utf-8?
From: Yakov Galka (ybungalobill_at_[hidden])
Date: 2012-01-23 09:28:13

On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 14:47, Beman Dawes <bdawes_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 4:46 AM, Yakov Galka <ybungalobill_at_[hidden]>
> wrote:
> [...]
>
> > Unfortunately it boils to the interface whence you can
> > get a c_str() to a UTF-16 string only.
>
> That's not correct.
>

It's correct. I state that path::c_str() returns UTF-16 on Windows. It's a
fact. So the encoding isn't an implementation detail but a part of the
interface. So you can do a conversion, but it has different semantics
because....

> If you have a path p, and the imbued codecvt if UTF-8, you can always
> get a UTF-8 narrow string by writing p.string<std::string>(), so you
> can always write p.string<std::string>().c_str() if you want a const
> char* to a UTF-8 encoded narrow string.
>

...it has a different life time. path::c_str() has the same lifetime as the
path, so would have the utf8-path::c_str().

If your app mostly needs UTF-8 strings, use std::string and only
> convert to a path when a path is actually needed.

> If your app mostly needs paths, use boost::filesystem::path and only
> convert to std::string when a std::string or const char* is actually
> needed.
>

My app needs UTF-8 paths. Don't use the term 'path' as synonym for
'boost::filesystem::path'. There are other paths in the world (QDir,
Poco::Path) and yours are neither special nor better.

-- 
Yakov