At 7:47 PM +0300 5/5/04, Jarkko Hietaniemi wrote:
> My hope for fewer options is for reading input. That is, I'd like the
default encoding for all inputs and outputs to be UTF8, unless it has
We tried this with perl 5.8.0 and the feedback was overwhelmingly
negative... if people do "print chr 0xff" they do expect one byte,
not two.
Of course, but that's not the only way to have a single encoding for
input and output. For example, "use utf8" (or some newly-named
equivalent) could have effects on all file input and output in the
scope. A different method would be to have all input and output be
binary, but to have standardized operator overload systems (this is
more cumbersome than the first suggestion).
What I don't want (and what we mostly have now) is a language where
the programmer has to remember to ask "what encoding am I using" for
every input or output command. If I have a text processing program,
it is likely that all input and output will be in my chosen encoding;
those that aren't need to be read/written using different tools (such
as subroutines that have the new encoding specified for their scope).
