[Gptfdisk-general] gdisk UTF16 check

[KESHAV P.R. <sko...@gm...>]

On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 23:56, Rod Smith <rod...@ro...> wrote:
>
> I've just posted a new version to the git repositories
> on SourceForge. This version (0.7.1-pre2) adds proper UTF-16LE support for
> the partition name fields. Previous versions have used a "quick-and-dirty"
> method of encoding ASCII characters in the name field, which I originally
> thought worked only for plain ASCII. I realize now that previous versions
> have allowed at least some non-ASCII characters in the partition names, but
> that used local encodings, not UTF-16LE, which is what the GPT
> specifications call for.
>
> Anyhow, I've tested this support as well as I can, but as an American with
> nothing but US keyboards, I'm limited to cutting-and-pasting text from Web
> pages and the like. If you could download that and check it out, I'd
> appreciate it. In theory, you should be able to create partition names in
> whatever non-Roman alphabets you like, although there may be restrictions
> based on your locale. If you see any weird behaviors, please tell me, and
> perhaps include a GPT backup for me to experiment with. Note that non-ASCII
> characters entered with the old version will display improperly with the new
> one, and vice-versa. There's nothing to be done about that, I'm afraid; the
> old version was buggy on this score (and this bug was noted in the man
> pages).
>
> Note that GNU Parted gets this wrong, too. I haven't checked its source
> code, but I suspect they used the same "quick-and-dirty" method of
> ASCII-to-UTF16LE encoding that I originally used. Apple's diskutil shows the
> correct partition names under OS X. I'm not sure about Windows utilities.
>
> Note that you'll need the ICU library (http://site.icu-project.org) and its
> development headers to compile the new version. Most Linux distributions
> install the library by default, but you may need to install the headers as a
> separate package.
>

I tested my gpt disk by changing name of 1 partition with 'செய்திகள்'
(without quotes) (tamil word for News). It looks weird in my terminal
though (locale en_US.UTF-8 with us keymap). Tamil uses dravidian
script.

Sorry I couldn't test it in non-US locales or keyboard as I have never
used any other language apart from english in computers itself. I
copied this word from Google India webpage in tamil (
http://www.google.co.in/setprefs?sig=0_uJKWo_XeWHl4zdqYpkdPoZ8TT4I=&hl=ta
) . The same can be done for hindi (devanagiri script) also (
http://www.google.co.in/setprefs?sig=0_uJKWo_XeWHl4zdqYpkdPoZ8TT4I=&hl=hi
). I don't know how many of the european languages use non-roman
letters but i can assure you plenty of asian languages have their own
scripts.

For different tamil words go to
http://news.google.co.in/nwshp?hl=ta&tab=wn and for hindi go to
http://news.google.co.in/nwshp?hl=hi&tab=wn . I have attached all the
GPT backup files , 1 for each tamil and hindi and one with Indian
Rupee symbol ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_rupee_sign ).

I think it is best for you to try it yourself as i did the same thing
you did - copy-paste from websites. Anyway i will test new versions as
an when you update git (i personally do not follow your release
versions in this regard). For archlinux, use this package
http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=39338 . Thanks in advance.

Regards.

Keshav

PS: GPT backup files sent to rod...@ro... since mailing-list
complained about crossing 40KB mail size limit.