Re: JFS default behavior (was: UTF-8 in file systems? xfs/extfs/etc.)

From: Eduard Bloch (edi_at_gmx.de)
Date: 02/14/04

  • Next message: Anuradha Ratnaweera: "Implementing SQL on files" 
    Date:	Sat, 14 Feb 2004 16:24:14 +0100
To: John Bradford <john@grabjohn.com>

    #include <hallo.h>
    * John Bradford [Thu, Feb 12 2004, 07:08:06PM]:

    > Well, as long as every userspace implementation gets it correct, we'll
    > be OK. Personally, I doubt they all will, especially those that
    > convert from legacy encodings to Unicode, although quite possibly the
    > above scenario with combining characters is not likely to happen for
    > filenames. Or is it? What about copying a file from a filesystem
    > with a UTF-8 encoding to a filesystem with a legacy encoding, and then
    > back again?

    I always wondered why there is no "iocharset" option for unixoid
    filesystems. IMO there could be an easy migration path for existing
    installations to UTF-8:

     - convert all filenames to UTF-8 (or any other Unicode encoding)
     - mount the FS with "iocharset=UTF-8,charset=latin1" (for current
       Latin1 users). Users can continue to use their latin1 names while
       they are stored in Unicode on the disk (this is what currently
       happens with VFAT, a very nice solution IMHO)
     - when enough applications are ready for multibyte encodings, remove
       the charset/iocharset workaround and make people use .UTF-8 locales

    Though, the ultimate solution for the steps 2. and 3. would be the
    Microsoft-like way:

     - convert the filenames in libc (from $locale to UTF-8), depending on
       which locale the user has set

    This sounds like cheating but would allow to be most flexible and most
    compatible to encoding-ignoring applications.

    Eduard. 

    -- 
Wir sind nichts; was wir suchen ist alles.
		-- Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin
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