Re: *foreign-encoding* & -Eforeign

[Bruno H. <br...@cl...>]

Sam wrote:
> sys::set-foreign-encoding checks that the encoding is 1:1.
> -Eforeign does not.
> therefore
>
> clisp -q -E utf-8
> (setq *foreign-encoding* *foreign-encoding*)
> ==> error!

Interesting contradiction :-)

> what should be done about this?

Given that it's quite important that "clisp -q -E utf-8" starts up without
an error message... I'd say:

Hacked solution:

Define a function sys::set-foreign-encoding-or-ascii which sets
O(foreign_encoding) to either the argument, if it is 1:1, or to ASCII.
Call this function from the startup routine.
The problem with this approach is that you cannot pass any non-ASCII string
through the FFI.

Right solution:

Change foreign.d to not assume that O(foreign_encoding) is 1:1. Yes this
implies some changes to the FFI. char[n] means n bytes, maybe fewer than n
characters.

Bruno