Re: Surrogates and character representation John.Cowan 24 Jul 2005 23:01 UTC
Per Bothner scripsit: > It's the other way round. Using UTF-8 as in internal representation is > just fine for *applications*. The problem is that certain *API*s have a > concept of indexing into a string, and unfortunately R5RS is one of > them. In itself indexing of strings is a useless feature, as it can be > replaced by a sequential-access cursor/iterator API - but historically > the Scheme cursor/iterator API uses integers for the "cursor". And > existing code moves the "cursor" forwards by adding 1. By the same token, random-access disks are a useless feature, for they can be replaced by sequential-access DECtapes that can be rewound and selectively rewritten. But at a price. -- Where the wombat has walked, John Cowan <xxxxxx@reutershealth.com> it will inevitably walk again. http://www.ccil.org/~cowan