Re: Filename encoding

[Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org>]

Chris Vine <chris@cvine.freeserve.co.uk> writes:

> A number of guile's scheme procedures look-up or reference files on a
> file system (open-file, load and so forth).
>
> How does guile translate filenames from its internal string
> representation (ISO-8859-1/UTF-32) to narrow string filename encoding
> when looking up the file?  Does it assume filenames are in locale
> encoding (not particularly safe on networked file systems) or does it
> provide a fluid for this?  (glib caters for this with the
> G_FILENAME_ENCODING environmental variable.)

It assumes filenames are in locale encoding.  Ditto for virtually
everything that interfaces with POSIX-style byte strings, including
environment variables, command-line arguments, etc.  Encoding errors
will raise exceptions by default.

My hope is that this will become less of an issue over time, as systems
increasingly standardize on UTF-8.  I see no other good solution.

Thoughts?

     Mark