[q-lang-users] Q/Qpad 7.8 bug with Unicode on Windows?

[Rob H. <hub...@gm...>]

Dear Albert,

the Unicode support on Windows XP seems to be broken. I've tried using a 
Unicode source file, but Q will not import it.

I've tried Q7.7, and upgraded to Q7.8. The latter behaves slightly 
worse, as it hangs.

I've not tried this before, so I don't know if it was broken in earlier 
versions. I've tried running in Cygwin/Bash as usual, but also in a 
plain DOS box; the behaviour is the same.

I've appended the outputs from the runs below.

Qpad doesn't like Unicode files either, but shows the files as 8-bit. (I 
assume Qpad doesn't support Unicode yet.)

[This problem is *not* urgent for me. I just thought I'd try it out of 
curiosity.]

Best wishes,
Rob.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In DOS or Cygwin/Bash with Q7.7:

$ q
  ____
 / __ \    Q interpreter version 7.7 (i386-pc-mingw32)
/ /_/ /    Copyright (c) 1991-2007 by Albert Graef
\___\_\    http://q-lang.sourceforge.net

This software is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public
License version 2 or later; type `copying' for details.

==> import empty_Unicode
Error empty_Unicode.q, line 1: parse error at or near symbol `+'
! Error compiling script

==> import empty
Error empty_Unicode.q, line 1: parse error at or near symbol `+'
! Error compiling script

==>

[where the `+' is shown in a DOS box *like* a "Box Drawings Double Down 
And Left" U+2557; that's probably just one of the DOS/Windows-specific 
characters from the non-7-bit (non-ASCII) part of the set.]

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In DOS or Cygwin/Bash with Q7.8:

D:\q\Unicode> q
  ____
 / __ \    Q interpreter version 7.8 (i386-pc-mingw32)
/ /_/ /    Copyright (c) 1991-2007 by Albert Graef
\___\_\    http://q-lang.sourceforge.net

This software is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public
License version 2 or later; type `copying' for details.

==> import empty_Unicode
Error empty_Unicode.q, line 1: parse error at or near symbol `+'

[note the hang.]

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The <empty_Unicode.q> file contains the following hex bytes, 
representing a UTF-8 header and a newline.

EF BB BF 0D 0A