"Robert A. Rosenberg" wrote:
> It would be very UNCool unless the application can tell the operating
> system that it wants this done for it. Otherwise it will have no way of
> KNOWING that the edited stream that the operating system is passing it IS
> UTF-8 (and was so identified by the deleted BOM) and not some other
> character-set that the program will fail on if it tries to parse it as
> UTF-8. Letting the application SEE the BOM acts as a sanity check.
I think the implication is that the OS provides an interface to read
characters out of a text file, in which case BOM-eating (and masking the
difference between various text encodings) is very sensible. Historic
OSes have not had such an interface, but Plan 9 does: getrune, putrune,
etc.
--
Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis um dies! || John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Schliesst euer Aug vor heiliger Schau, || http://www.reutershealth.com
Denn er genoss vom Honig-Tau, || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Und trank die Milch vom Paradies. -- Coleridge (tr. Politzer)
