Re: [PATCH] Use UTF-8 active code page for Windows host.

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Costas Argyris <costas.argyris@gmail.com>
> Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2023 23:04:52 +0100
> Cc: bug-make@gnu.org
> 
> > Should we fail here?  Or should we build without UTF-8 support since we
> > don't have a resource compiler?  I think that's what the configure
> > version does, right?
> 
> You are right, that was an inconsistency on my part, sorry about that.
> It's true that the configure version is optional on this, whereas
> build_w32.bat errors out.
> 
> I think the answer depends on what is going to be the policy regarding
> Make on Windows and UTF-8.    If we want to claim that Make on Windows
> has gone UTF-8, matching fully the Unix-based platforms, then it has to
> be an error if it can't be built as such.    My personal opinion is that this
> is the way forward, because it may be confusing if we end up in a
> situation where some users have a UTF-8 version of Make and some
> others don't.

Being able to know whether UTF-8 is supported or not is a valid
concern.  How about adding this information to what "make --version"
shows?

> I think just go full UTF-8 like the other systems.

But it isn't "full UTF-8", as we have established during the
discussions.  MS-Windows is not yet ready for that, even in its latest
versions.

> Of course, users on versions of Windows earlier than the target version
> that supports this feature still won't get UTF-8, but that would be because
> of their version of Windows, not because of the way Make was built.

Right.

> That is, I am more inclined to make the configure version also error
> out if windres was not found, than to make build_w32.bat optional.

I'm of the opposite opinion.

> This is mostly based on the fact that windres is part of binutils which is
> pretty much ubiquitous because gcc itself relies on its tools (most
> notably the assembler and linker).    So if someone is building with
> gcc, they will almost certainly already have windres.    For building
> with MSVC that's a non-issue because MSVC comes bundled with its
> own resource compiler, so it is always going to be there.

Then this is a non-issue: the error will not happen except in some
situations we cannot imagine.

> So I think it is reasonable to expect that there is always going to be a
> resource compiler available.    Even if not, say, when building with tcc,
> it is always possible to error out with a message saying to install binutils.

I'd like to avoid annoying users with requests to install something
they did well without previously.  Some would consider this a
regression.