On 03/27/2013 12:39 PM, Mark JAEGER wrote:
> Hello Eric,
> 
> The terms "single-byte character" and "single-byte
> printable character" do not sound precise to me.

They are precise - they are characters in the encoding determined by the
current setting of LC_CTYPE.

> 
> A byte is just a byte.  It is NOT a character.
> I.e., it is an octet, or an 8-bit quantity.
> 
> It CAN be interpreted as a character, but only in
> the context of a particular ENCODING.

Yes, but the ENCODING is always known, thanks to the rules on LC_* and
locale handling.

> 
> The help text as it stands now IS precise in talking
> about ASCII, which IS a particular encoding.
> 
> Please don't use the term "single-byte ... character"
> without being precise about what encoding it uses.

The encoding is whatever encoding you asked for.

-- 
Eric Blake   eblake redhat com    +1-919-301-3266
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org