From: Clint Adams <clint@zsh.org>
To: zsh-workers@sunsite.dk
Subject: UTF-8 FAQs
Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2005 22:33:35 -0500 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20050109033335.GA18994@scowler.net> (raw)
The number of questions I've been getting about zsh and UTF-8
have skyrocketed over the past couple of weeks.
Perhaps some of these belong in the zsh FAQ. Corrections to my stock
answers are welcome.
Q: Does zsh support UTF-8?
A: zsh's built-in printf command supports "\u" and "\U" escapes
to output arbitrary Unicode characters. ZLE (the Zsh Line Editor) has
no concept of character encodings, and is confused by multi-octet
encodings.
Q: Why doesn't zsh have proper UTF-8 support?
A: The code has not been written yet.
Q: What makes UTF-8 support difficult to implement?
A: In order to handle arbitrary encodings the correct way, significant
and intrusive changes must be made to the shell.
Q: Why can't zsh just use readline?
A: ZLE is not encapsulated from the rest of the shell. Isolating it
such that it could be replaced by readline would be a significant
effort. Furthermore, using readline would effect a significant loss of
features.
Q: How can I help implement UTF-8 support in zsh?
A: One approach would be to have ZLE use wide characters internally.
Character based widgets could then operate on a single wide character
instead of a single byte, and the proper display width can be calculated
with wcswidth().
next reply other threads:[~2005-01-09 3:34 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 4+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2005-01-09 3:33 Clint Adams [this message]
2005-01-11 17:37 ` Peter Stephenson
2005-01-11 18:23 ` Clint Adams
2005-03-23 0:51 ` Clint Adams
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