[I removed srfi-56 from the follow-up, since it's more
related to srfi-68.]

Michael Sperber wrote:
 > Per Bothner <xxxxxx@bothner.com> writes:
 >
 >>Let me emphasize again: It is essential that open-output-file
 >>create a file using the same encoding that the rest of my
 >>environment expects.  I should be able to open the file
 >>using my default editor.  If I cat/type/view the file, my
 >>terminal should display the correct glyphs, and not be garbled.
 >
 > I don't think that's possible in general;

Why not?  It's certainly what I (and I think most people)
would expect.

 > it sure doesn't work on my Windows box.

Then I'd say you have a broken Windows box or a broken Scheme
implementation.

 > I also don't consider this essential.

What happens if on your German-located Windows box you write a file
using notepad (assuming I haven't mixed up Windows editors: I mean a
native plain-text editor) and using German letters.  (I don't know if
Windows XP now uses UTF-8; if so, dig out an old pre-Unicode Windows
95 box.)  If you "type" this file, I would expect all the letters to
show up in the console window, assuming you're still using the same
German-localized Windows box.

If I were taking a Scheme class, I certainly hope I can read this
file, using open-input-file, and without having to specify any
special flags or options.
--
	--Per Bothner
xxxxxx@bothner.com   http://per.bothner.com/