Re: Unicode support

In article <427f5ff4$0$39084$ed2e19e4@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Simon Geard <simon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Is support for unicode in filenames and character strings provided
> intrinsically by the language (f95) or is it compiler specific?

In f95, the whole subject is completely compiler specific.

In f2003, the standard defines a unicode character kind (ok, it is ISO
10646 UCS-4 - I get confused about the fine distinctions between 10646
and unicode, but I think it is essentially the same thing). It is still
optional to the processor whether that kind is supported, but the
spelling of how to access such a kind is defined. This might encourage
more widespread implementation, but that is just speculation on my part.
I have personally never seen an f90/f95 compiler that defined any
character kind other than default, although I believe that there might
be some Asian compilers that do so.

The form of valid file names is compiler specific. However,
interestingly I had to check), I see that a file name must be of default
character kind, even if other kinds are supported. This seems to suggest
that you couldn't (in the standard) support unicode file names unless
unicode was the default kind. Unicode contents is explicitly ok in f2003
(optionally to the compiler), but doesn't look like unicode file names
have the same level of support. Of course, if the compiler otherwise
supports unicode, and the operating system also supports unicode in file
names, it wouldn't surprise me to see that as a trivial extension. In
fact, I'd be tempted to call its lack an oversight in the standard.

--
Richard Maine | Good judgment comes from experience;
email: my first.last at org.domain | experience comes from bad judgment.
org: nasa, domain: gov | -- Mark Twain
.

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