On Mon, 5 Jan 2026 14:57:41 -0500, Phil Smith III wrote:
>Interesting. A problem is that this requires converting хорошо to hex
>(presumably big-endian, which is at least one reason the U+ format
>exists--it's unambiguous). Of course using the U+ format requires converting
>хорошо to those values, so maybe it's a wash, not sure.
>
>The good news, of course, is that there are lots of tools available to do
>these conversions.
>
It don't haffta be so hard! I installed GNU cobol on my laptop and
taught myself enough COBOL to RTFM and add one line to
a sample I found on the net:
****************************************
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. hello.
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
DISPLAY "Hello, world!".
DISPLAY 'Hello; Привет, мир'.
STOP RUN.
****************************************
Compiling issued numerous warnings, which I ignored.
Then execution:
594 $ ./hello
Hello, world!
Hello; Привет, мир
595 $
The problem is EBCDIC masochism. MVS programmers
steadfastly deny there's something better.
A half century ago, IBM "bet the company" on punched
cards and users have suffered ever since. Wake up!
--
gil
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