Bryan C . Warnock <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>Perhaps string promotion a la SV promotion?
>
>You could have each string carry around an extra byte or two of
>overhead, and encode ASCII vs UTF8 (vs UTF32 vs FOO).
>
>Line disciplines would set the appropriate flag, and any string
>handling function could read the flag if it needed to differentiate
>by type, or even convert the string to a different type.
>
>That would save the overhead of converting everything to a different
>type when it isn't necessary, plus should allow you to extend string
>types to whatever you can squeeze a flag in for and write the
>appropriate conversion routines.
Aside from the fact we had to squeeze the flags out of existing data
structures that is exactly what 5.6.* does. (And of course line displines
are not really there yet.)
--
Nick Ing-Simmons
