Re: [9fans] Go (again) on plan9/arm

[erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net>]

> We are expecting a release from Bell Labs of Plan 9 with 21-bit runes
> replacing the current 16-bit version.  This is big and difficult and
> almost certainly extremely painful, so I doubt it will be completed
> quickly (feel free to surprise me, guys!).  I noticed some changes
> being applied today, I think Geoff and Co. are approaching the problem
> circumspectly and, this is my guess, by making adjustments that can be
> kept self-contained.  I do wish them speedy success.

i transitioned to 20 bit runes a few years ago, and the process was
really pain-free.  Runemax is handy to have instead of just hard-coding
0xffff, and character arrays on the stack are a bit suspicious, since they
often mean UTFmax or UTFmax+1.  but most programs are good-to-go
for large runes.  notible exceptions that i can think of off the top of my head
are in no order:

- wc
- ed, sed, sort
- rc
- grep (for bursting rune ranges)

these are fixed in 9atom, and not a problem unless you actually use them.
there are a few problems in the libraries, also fixed.  mostly in the font code.

there are also tools in 9atom to create new tables for libc in /sys/src/cmd/rune,
including a unicode 6.1 /lib/unicode.

because who doesn't want to grin

; grep grin /lib/unicode
01f600	grinning face
01f601	grinning face with smiling eyes
01f638	grinning cat face with smiling eyes
; ; unicode 01f600 01f601 01f638
😀
😁
😸

- erik