> On Jul 16, 2018, at 1:36 PM, Steven D'Aprano > <steve+comp.lang.pyt...@pearwood.info> wrote: > > On Mon, 16 Jul 2018 13:11:23 -0400, Richard Damon wrote: > >>> On Jul 16, 2018, at 12:51 PM, Steven D'Aprano >>> <steve+comp.lang.pyt...@pearwood.info> wrote: >>> >>>> On Mon, 16 Jul 2018 00:28:39 +0300, Marko Rauhamaa wrote: >>>> >>>> if your new system used Python3's UTF-32 strings as a foundation, that >>>> would be an equally naïve misstep. You'd need to reach a notch higher >>>> and use glyphs or other "semiotic atoms" as building blocks. UTF-32, >>>> after all, is a variable-width encoding. >>> >>> Python's strings aren't UTF-32. They are sequences of abstract code >>> points. >>> >>> UTF-32 is not a variable-width encoding. >>> >>> -- >>> Steven D'Aprano >>> >>> >> Many consider that UTF-32 is a variable-width encoding because of the >> combining characters. It can take multiple ‘codepoints’ to define what >> should be a single ‘character’ for display. > > Ah, well if we're going to start making up our own definitions of terms, > then ASCII is a variable-width encoding too. > > "Ch" (a single letter of the alphabet in a number of European languages, > including Welsh and Czech) requires two code points in ASCII. Even in > English, "qu" could be considered a two-byte "character" (grapheme), and > for ASCII users, (c) is a THREE code point character for what ought to be > a single character ©. > > The standard definition of variable- and fixed-width encodings refers to > how many *code units* is required to make up a single *code point*. > > Under that standard definition, UTF-8 and UTF-16 are variable-width, and > UTF-32 is fixed-width. > > But I'll accept that UTF-32 is variable-width if Marko accepts that ASCII > is too. > > -- > Steven D'Aprano >
But I am not talking about those sort of characters or ligatures, but ‘characters’ that are built up of a combining diacritical marks (like accents) and a base character. Unicode define many code points for the more common of these, but many others do not. -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
