On Sat, 22 Feb 2003, Terje Bless wrote:
I do not know the situation on other platforms, but on Mac OS X the system
libraries -- including GUI frameworks -- operate on UTF-16 strings
internally and support UNICODE internally. I would expect this to be common
on most platforms today or in the very near future. IOW, this whole issue
is likely to be allready solved by the host platform for the "GUI programs
and screen editors".
I suggest that you read up on stringprep. There's quite a lot that needs
to be done that isn't done by these libraries.
There are other parts of the infrastructure where I would worry far more
about the "width and length" of characters.
Even if the OS and libraries support Unicode, the application programs
still need to use those routines. You can't expect to take an old program
and have it magically become Unicode-savvy.
All you have to do is look at Windows, which has been Unicode savvy for
years longer than Mac. Most applications on Windows are still not Unicode
savvy.
A Unicode savvy application has to be designed to be Unicode savvy from
the ground up. As soon as you get into GUIs, you have all sorts of other
wonderful details to worry about. You actually have to alter the layout
of your GUI on a script-dependent basis. No amount of OS libraries will
do this for you.
There are some simplifying assumptions that you may be able to make for
newsgroup names. Maybe. It won't work for text.
It ain't just a matter of wider characters and bigger fonts.
-- Mark --
http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.