On Thu, May 03, 2007 at 10:52:26AM -0700, Rob Pike wrote:
> The snarf issue that bothers me most these days is that the
> plan9port programs, at least on the mac, don't handle UTF-8
> in the snarf buffer correctly.  UTF-8 going out turns into junk;
> going in it turns into question marks.

Yes, this bothered the hell out of me, too. I fixed my copy of 
devdraw(1) to ask for a UTF8_STRING before a STRING, as suggested by the 
comment, which seems to imply that the extra polling is not worth the 
effort:

	 * We should try to go for _x.utf8string instead of XA_STRING,
	 * but that would add to the polling.

I hacked this together in about a minute, so it's not beautiful, but it 
works.

$PLAN9/src/cmd/devdraw/x11-itrans.c:439:
	prop = 1;
	data = nil;
	XChangeProperty(_x.display, _x.drawable, prop, _x.utf8string, 8, PropModeReplace, (uchar*)"", 0);
	XConvertSelection(_x.display, clipboard, _x.utf8string, prop, _x.drawable, CurrentTime);
	XFlush(_x.display);
	lastlen = 0;
	for(i=0; i<10 || (lastlen!=0 && i<30); i++){
		usleep(100*1000);
		XGetWindowProperty(_x.display, _x.drawable, prop, 0, 0, 0, AnyPropertyType,
			&type, &fmt, &dummy, &len, &data);
		if(lastlen == len && len > 0)
			break;
		lastlen = len;
	}
	if(lastlen == 0) {
		XChangeProperty(_x.display, _x.drawable, prop, XA_STRING, 8, PropModeReplace, (uchar*)"", 0);
		XConvertSelection(_x.display, clipboard, XA_STRING, prop, _x.drawable, CurrentTime);
		XFlush(_x.display);
		lastlen = 0;
		for(i=0; i<10 || (lastlen!=0 && i<30); i++){
			usleep(100*1000);
			XGetWindowProperty(_x.display, _x.drawable, prop, 0, 0, 0, AnyPropertyType,
				&type, &fmt, &dummy, &len, &data);
			if(lastlen == len && len > 0)
				break;
			lastlen = len;
		}
	}
	if(lastlen == 0)
		goto out;

-- 
Kris Maglione