On Fri, 5 Oct 2007 09:27:59 +0200
"Graeme Geldenhuys" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I asked a similar question in the MSEgui newsgroup as well. What was
> the reason for choosing to support UTF-8 instead of UTF-16?
>
> ----- Quoted Mattias from 6 months ago --------------
> The LCL will support UTF-8 and provide some extra functions for
> UTF-16, because UTF-8 is more compatible to existing pascal programs
> ----------- END --------------
>
>
> Does this mean UTF-8 was chosen only because it is more compatible
> with existing pascal programs? Any other reasons?
>
> These are the pro points I received for using UTF-16 in MSEgui.
>
> * It is faster to work with UTF-16 (and so WideString) encoded text
> compared to UTF-8.
> * Easier to implement.
> * WideString allows indexed "[]" accessing individual chars.
> * Has predictable "length()" value. (not sure what they meant here)
This all assumes UTF-16 has only 2-byte characters, but there are
4-byte characters too.
The above is true for UTF-32.
> * Most widget toolkits and libraries have WideString API's already.
> (Win32, Xft, Xlib etc..)
And all platforms have functions for UTF-8.
The main reason is:
UTF-8 is more compatible to existing pascal programs, because they use
'string', not widestring.
Mattias
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