GNU bug report logs - #7948
multibyte: 16-bit wchar_t on Windows and Cygwin

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Package: coreutils;

Reported by: Eric Blake <eblake <at> redhat.com>

Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2011 16:51:02 UTC

Severity: wishlist

Merged with 7963, 7968

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From: Andy Koppe <andy.koppe <at> gmail.com>
To: cygwin <at> cygwin.com
Cc: bug-gnulib <at> gnu.org, Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>, Eric Blake <eblake <at> redhat.com>, bug-coreutils <bug-coreutils <at> gnu.org>
Subject: bug#7948: 16-bit wchar_t on Windows and Cygwin
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2011 20:43:17 +0000
On 2 February 2011 18:57, Bruno Haible wrote:
> Hi Paul,
>
>> >   - Define a type 'wwchar_t' on all platforms, equivalent to uint32_t
>> >     on Windows platforms and to 'wchar_t' otherwise.
>>
>> As a minor point, would it be OK to call this type
>> 'xchar_t' instead?  'x' is the successor to 'w', after all,
>> and it can be thought of as an abbreviation for 'eXtended'.
>
> 'wwchar_t' means "wide wide character".
>
> In fact it's not really an "extended" character or "complex character".
> It's just what POSIX calls a 'wchar_t'.

It's extended in the sense that the original Unicode was only 16 bits
wide (which of course is why wchar_t on Windows is 16 bits). Also, I
think 'xchar_t' is less prone to typos, in particular forgetting one
of the dubyas.

Andy




This bug report was last modified 6 years and 270 days ago.

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