in reply to Re^5: Mugged by UTF8, this CANNOT be right
in thread Mugged by UTF8, this CANNOT be right

Perl is an incredible language, my exclusive language for 15 years now, but when it comes to the global language requirements that most web programming ultimately requires perhaps Perl is presently just not suited to that task.

None of those tasks are Perl-specific.

and each needs to be checked, decoded, encoded, numerous times.

None need to be "checked". If you don't want to use NULLs, don't use NULLs. If you want to use NULLs, don't complain that you're using NULLs.

As for your claim that each needs to be decoded and encoded multiple times, it's non-sense. Everything needs to be decoded and encoded exactly once, and that can usually be done automatically.

Which leads me to ask: Is there a programming language that easily handles Unicode either automatically

Unicode is not an encoding.

Your problem has to do with dealing the encodings of various data sources. You have to do that no matter what language unless it places limits on your data sources and on your outputs.

  • Comment on Re^6: Mugged by UTF8, this CANNOT be right

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Re^7: Mugged by UTF8, this CANNOT be right
by DrHyde (Prior) on Jan 27, 2011 at 10:55 UTC
    Which leads me to ask: Is there a programming language that easily handles Unicode
    Unicode is not an encoding.

    Nor does the OP suggest in what you're replying to that it is.

    The answer is no, there is no language that makes it easy. This is the fault of the fucking cretins who decided that having eleventy million different encodings of the same text was a great idea, and that the encoding that should be most common should be really complicated.

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      Nor does the OP suggest in what you're replying to that it is.

      It's not clear what he suggests since he didn't say what he meant. He's definitely not talking about Unicode. Perl is excellent at handling Unicode and gets better with every version. The problems he is having relate to encodings, and that has nothing to do with Unicode.

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        The problems he is having relate to encodings, and that has nothing to do with Unicode.
        Except that he's having problems with Unicode encodings. In spite of protestations to the contrary, the term Unicode really refers to a standard and that standard includes definitions of encodings. IMO, it is a permissible shorthand to say Unicode encodings (or similar) as a shorthand for one or more of the encodings embodied in the Unicode standard(s) (or similar). The former is certainly easier on the senses and (again, IMO) is pretty unambiguous.

        Note: I did not say that Unicode is synonymous with encoding. But saying that Unicode is not an encoding is every bit as incomplete a statement as saying that Unicode refers only to the encoding parts of the standard(s).

[reply]

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