Re: standard representations

[Dan Sugalski]

At 12:56 PM 12/29/00 +0000, Nick Ing-Simmons wrote:
>Dan Sugalski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> >
> >Strings can be of three types--binary data, platform native, and UTF-32.
> >No, we are not messing around with UTF-8 or 16, nor are we messing with
> >EBCDIC, shift-JIS, or any of that stuff.
>
>I don't understand that in the light of supporting "platform native".
>That could easily be any of those as you note below.

I'm crossing my fingers and hoping for fixed-width representations, 
honestly. I think it's in vain, though. :(

>So what operations
>are supported on "platform native" strings?

For fixed-width ones, pretty much everything. For variable-width ones, at 
least native<->UTF-32 and punt from there. (This is seeming less tenable as 
I think about it more)

>Are we at the mercy of locale's
>idea of upper/lower case, sort order etc.?

Probably, yes.

                                        Dan

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