From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.lisp.guile.user Subject: Re: guile can't find a chinese named file Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2017 18:07:14 +0200 Message-ID: <83lgsrpqh9.fsf@gnu.org> References: <874m0gd3z4.fsf@gnu.org> <87wpdc8rx7.fsf@elektro.pacujo.net> <87poj4r04c.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <87k29c8q3b.fsf@elektro.pacujo.net> <87h94gqz34.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <87fuk0ctve.fsf@elektro.pacujo.net> <878tpsqtzl.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <87zii8bcdw.fsf@elektro.pacujo.net> <87y3xspcux.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <578885360.4452806.1487105647708@mail.yahoo.com> <87inoc5npq.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <8737f0tzs0.fsf@pobox.com> Reply-To: Eli Zaretskii NNTP-Posting-Host: blaine.gmane.org X-Trace: blaine.gmane.org 1488211696 12759 195.159.176.226 (27 Feb 2017 16:08:16 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@blaine.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2017 16:08:16 +0000 (UTC) Cc: guile-user@gnu.org To: Andy Wingo Original-X-From: guile-user-bounces+guile-user=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Feb 27 17:08:11 2017 Return-path: Envelope-to: guile-user@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1ciNqJ-0002ai-85 for guile-user@m.gmane.org; Mon, 27 Feb 2017 17:08:07 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:53965 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ciNqP-0001QZ-3i for guile-user@m.gmane.org; Mon, 27 Feb 2017 11:08:13 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:37935) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ciNpa-0001Os-JG for guile-user@gnu.org; Mon, 27 Feb 2017 11:07:23 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ciNpW-0006xx-L0 for guile-user@gnu.org; Mon, 27 Feb 2017 11:07:22 -0500 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:60123) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ciNpW-0006xk-HI; Mon, 27 Feb 2017 11:07:18 -0500 Original-Received: from 84.94.185.246.cable.012.net.il ([84.94.185.246]:2766 helo=home-c4e4a596f7) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtpsa (TLS1.2:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:256) (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1ciNpV-0001Da-VA; Mon, 27 Feb 2017 11:07:18 -0500 In-reply-to: <8737f0tzs0.fsf@pobox.com> (message from Andy Wingo on Sun, 26 Feb 2017 22:20:31 +0100) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-Received-From: 2001:4830:134:3::e X-BeenThere: guile-user@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 Precedence: list List-Id: General Guile related discussions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: guile-user-bounces+guile-user=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "guile-user" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.lisp.guile.user:13334 Archived-At: > From: Andy Wingo > Date: Sun, 26 Feb 2017 22:20:31 +0100 > > In Scheme, strings are sequences of characters. Encoding and decoding > is only needed when going to and from bytes. Guile supports a finite > number of encodings, so in general some encoding/decoding will always be > needed. The specific encoding may change over time. The lesson of Emacs development is that there's a need for "characters" that represent raw bytes which cannot be decoded into the internal representation, for whatever reasons. These special "characters" need to be representable in strings, among "normal" recognizable characters (and thus distinguishable from the latter kind), and they need to be converted back to their single-byte form when the string is output to the external world. An implementation of text that doesn't include these features will always fail to support some important use cases.