Tomohiro KUBOTA <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Hi,
>
> At Sun, 2 Sep 2001 12:32:17 +0200,
> Pablo Saratxaga <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > Xft in unicode only is simple and thiny; is conversion mechanism should be
> > added it will be fat very quickly, it will add extra requirements on iconv
> > library, etc.
> > It would make sense to have that layer in a separate library, not in Xft api
> > itself, as that functionality will be needed only by a small portion of
> > old programs only.
>
> I think this is the focus of your opinion. I agree that encoding
> conversion mechanism will be fat. However, _this_ is why I think
> the encoding conversion mechanism should be added to some very
> basic libraries. Otherwise, because encoding conversion is
> needed by all Unicode-based i18n softwares (for I/O) and by
> all mb/wc-based i18n softwares (for Xft), many libraries and
> many applications will independently develop and have such fat
> conversion mechanisms, which is a waste of resource and a
> source of bugs.
>
> The best way would be that all libc would have relyable and
> portable iconv() and XFree86/Xft could use it. This didn't
> occur. However, fortunately, libX11 has a portable encoding
> conversion mechanism. It is portable and relyable, which is
> why Juliusz develops luit using it. Since Xft is a part
> of XFree86 distribution, it is always avaiable. (Compilation
> option not to support conversion in libX11? Then the option
> can be supplied also to encoding conversion for Xft.)
> Why not use it?
I think it's pretty bad bloat to have codeset conversion tables
both in Xlib and in the C library. For GTK+/GLib, we use
the system's iconv() if available and good enough, and otherwise
require libiconv for providing the equivalent functionality.
If code conversion is seen as a necessary thing to be in Xlib,
I hope Xlib can eventually switch to some such mechanism,
rather than reinventing the wheel. X is not the entire platform,
and codeset conversion is useful for many programs that are
not GUI at all, so Xlib should not be the primary repository
for codeset conversion tables.
Regards,
Owen
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