But that's beside the point, because whether or not a wchar_t is
16 or 32 bits, and whether or not using it as an array subscript
works, an array with at least 65536 elements is likely to be a
big waste of space and one should be seriously considering using
sparse array techniques anyway.
Yes, if the implementor wants to use 32 bits for each character (e.g.
to allow for language tags or font tags), then using a 32-bit unit to
index into an array is likely to be wasteful.
But if the implementor does not need such tags attached to *each*
character, and if that implementor is not worried about the
possibility of 10646 actually using the other 16 bits in the future
(personally, I don't think the high 16 bits will ever be used for
anything even remotely useful), then using 16-bit units to index into
an array is not all that wasteful.
You can have, say, 32 bits of information in each array element.
65,536 times 4 is 262,144 bytes i.e. not all that big compared to the
graphics libraries that are currently used a lot.
Erik