From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Marko Rauhamaa Newsgroups: gmane.lisp.guile.user Subject: Re: guile can't find a chinese named file Date: Wed, 15 Feb 2017 00:12:02 +0200 Message-ID: <87shngcthp.fsf@elektro.pacujo.net> 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> <87r330cwhj.fsf@elektro.pacujo.net> <191859705.4469709.1487109121157@mail.yahoo.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: blaine.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: blaine.gmane.org 1487110356 20129 195.159.176.226 (14 Feb 2017 22:12:36 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@blaine.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2017 22:12:36 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/25.1 (gnu/linux) Cc: David Kastrup , Guile User To: Mike Gran Original-X-From: guile-user-bounces+guile-user=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Feb 14 23:12:31 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 1cdlKm-0004Yc-3K for guile-user@m.gmane.org; Tue, 14 Feb 2017 23:12:28 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:37439 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1cdlKr-0007Wh-G5 for guile-user@m.gmane.org; Tue, 14 Feb 2017 17:12:33 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:57527) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1cdlKS-0007Te-V2 for guile-user@gnu.org; Tue, 14 Feb 2017 17:12:10 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1cdlKR-0001cu-Jn for guile-user@gnu.org; Tue, 14 Feb 2017 17:12:08 -0500 Original-Received: from [2001:1bc8:1a0:5384:7a2b:cbff:fe9f:e508] (port=58110 helo=pacujo.net) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1cdlKP-0001bW-Qe; Tue, 14 Feb 2017 17:12:05 -0500 Original-Received: from elektro.pacujo.net (192.168.1.200) by elektro.pacujo.net; Wed, 15 Feb 2017 00:12:02 +0200 Original-Received: by elektro.pacujo.net (sSMTP sendmail emulation); Wed, 15 Feb 2017 00:12:02 +0200 In-Reply-To: <191859705.4469709.1487109121157@mail.yahoo.com> (Mike Gran's message of "Tue, 14 Feb 2017 21:52:01 +0000 (UTC)") X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 2001:1bc8:1a0:5384:7a2b:cbff:fe9f:e508 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:13208 Archived-At: Mike Gran : > On Tuesday, February 14, 2017 1:07 PM, Marko Rauhamaa > wrote: >> Unicode strings are a special data type that have relatively little> >> practical use. Byte strings are much more fundamental. C's "char *" >> is perfect. > > Human language itself is of limited practical use except for > communicating information to people that read languages that have a > text representation. Unicode is useful, don't get me wrong. However, Unicode is not the same as "human language itself". Unicode is a huge can of worms, and yet not big enough. It is best reserved for the use of text-processing applications. It shouldn't be shoved down the throat of each and every application. A much more fundamental data type is the byte string, which can represent many things, including Unicode. With UTF-8, I mostly don't need an interpretive step to deal with plain text. Sure, I can't know the visual width of my plain text string, but it's not simply the number of Unicode points, either, because of diacritics and other similar complications. >> In particular, filenames are *not*, nor can they be mapped to, >> Unicode strings in Linux. > > True. Linux should follow OpenBSD and make all locales UTF-8. Maybe, but Guile should wait until Linux has made the transition. There are no signs of such a transition at the moment. Linux deals in bytes and couldn't care less about interpreting those bytes. Marko