Re: string port encodings

[Andy Wingo]

Hi :)

On Wed 16 Jan 2013 16:44, address@hidden (Ludovic Courtès) writes:

> Andy Wingo <address@hidden> skribis:
>
>> But no, currently the answer is locale-specific.  It encodes the string
>> according to the current locale, then decodes it from that encoding.  If
>> your locale can't encode the string, tough luck for you!
>
> SRFI-6 uses Unicode-capable ports since
> ecb48dccbac6b8fdd969f50a23351ef7f4b91ce5

I have never heard of this srfi before; I always thought our string
ports "just worked" :P

> Otherwise, %default-port-encoding governs (info "(guile) String Ports"):

But why?  The documentation does not say it; it merely spends electrons
describing how to make string ports actually accept all characters.

You mention one use case:

> as a smart way to do encoding conversion.

But surely this is not a common case and is adequately handled by
set-port-encoding!, potentially via an optional argument.

> The thing is, unlike R6RS, our ports can be used both for textual and
> binary I/O.

I am aware of this, and not arguing against it :)

> This has been discussed at length already, and I think all the pros and
> cons have been written already.  :-)

"What from your father you’ve inherited, You must earn again, to own it
straight." -- Faust

:)

Flippantly yours,

Andy
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