Re: [Squeak-VMdev] Proposal: VM string encoding

[Yoshiki O. <Yos...@ac...>]

  Bert,

> >   We'll need a way to use possibly different encodings for:
> >
> >   * File name
> >   * clipboard
> >   * keyboard input
> >   and possibly
> >   * default system encoding
> >
> >   Assigning 1006 through 1008 would be good.
> 
> Can you describe the circumstances when these encodings are different 
> from the default encoding?

  It is rather typical in this part of the world on Unices.  Older
systems tend to use EUC and newer ones usually trys to use Unicode,
but often those are mixed in one environment and possibly all
combinations can exist.  I don't know too much about Mac, but as far
as I know, it has different set of file access APIs and none of them
is good enough to be used exclusively.  That is why (as far as I
heard) the Japanese Squeak running on Mac OS X cannot use the Japanese
image file name because at first the VM uses the MacRoman version of
file name.

> Are they at least constant over a session?

  Yes.  We can assume this.

> Or can the encoding differ for distinct clipboard accesses or filename 
> uses? If the latter, then a VM attribute would not be optimal.

  For file name, it has to be set in the earlier stage of VM
invocation, but the clipboard and keyboard input can be set later.
So, potentially read-write VM attributes would do it.

-- Yoshiki