Re: Linux and UTF8 filenames

[Edward Cherlin <cherlin@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thursday 19 September 2002 07:17 am, Maiorana, Jason wrote:
> The main thing I find holding me back from really using
> UTF-8 for all filenames is the lack a good input method support
> for the console. I log into my machine with putty and cygwin from
> windows boxes, ssh from linux, and gnome-terminal and the console
> locally. If there was a way to use the same input method system at
> each of those levels, then I would have a much easier time
>
> I dont think that IIIMF is really going to address the console
> issue at that level. 

Well, it is certainly supposed to. Do you mean that developers will 
not make use of it? If the people responsible for putty, Cygwin, ssh, 
gnome-terminal and the console don't put in IIIMF capability, you or 
someone else with similar needs almost certainly will. I haven't 
examined the IIIMF testing standards proposed by Free Standards Group 
for next month, but my understanding is that conforming distributions 
will eventually be required to ship with at least a minimum list of 
conforming utilities and apps. If you want one, tell Li18nux and FSG 
yourself.

> (Also it uses UTF-16 internally, anyone else
> find that wierd for Unix software?)

The internal coding used by any software is totally irrelevant to any 
other software, or to users. UTF-16 stores BMP CJK characters in two 
bytes each, whereas UTF-8 requires three. This saves some space in a 
number of tables. It isn't a big deal, but it is a very reasonable 
design choice.
-- 
Edward Cherlin
Maintainer, Unicode HOWTO

--
Linux-UTF8:   i18n of Linux on all levels
Archive:      http://mail.nl.linux.org/linux-utf8/