Difference between revisions of "Migration to Unicode"

Revision as of 21:42, 8 November 2012

This is a summary of the recommendations for adapting applications to handle Unicode.

Never use STRING_8 or any variant of it unless you write a program that is going to be deleted in 5 minutes after running it. Do not even consider using STRING_8 or its variant. Always use IMMUTABLE_STRING_32, READABLE_STRING_32 or STRING_32.
Do not use classes from third-party libraries that take STRING_8 rather than STRING_32.
Use PATH to manipulate file or directory names
Whenever an API takes a READABLE_STRING_GENERAL argument, assume that STRING_8 will be treated as Unicode strings in the range 0 .. 255, unless explicitly noted.

Consider using READABLE_STRING_32 for argument types. If you cannot immediately change argument types to take READABLE_STRING_32, e.g. because this is a library class, use READABLE_STRING_GENERAL and perform all the necessary conversions inside the routine.
If you need to convert one UTF encoding into another one, use UTF_CONVERTER. This is an expanded class, so it's possible to declare a local variable of this type and call features on it without explicit object creation.
Consider using SHARED_EXECUTION_ENVIRONMENT to access EXECUTION_ENVIRONMENT_32.

@@ Line 7: / Line 7: @@
 # Do not use classes from third-party libraries that take <e>STRING_8</e> rather than <e>STRING_32</e>.
 # Use <e>PATH</e> to manipulate file or directory names
-# Whenever an API takes a READABLE_STRING_GENERAL argument, assumes that STRING_8 will be treated as Unicode strings in the range 0 .. 255, unless explicitly noted.
+# Whenever an API takes a READABLE_STRING_GENERAL argument, assume that STRING_8 will be treated as Unicode strings in the range 0 .. 255, unless explicitly noted.
 ====Temporary solution====