Re: Unicode -- issues and recommendations

Jonathan S. Shapiro wrote:
> Character Size:
> 
> I don't think that C-- can take a position on character size.

I don't see why we would want it to. C-- defines types sufficient
to represent Unicode code units (bits8 for UTF-8, bits16 for UTF-16,
bits32 for UTF-32) and code points (bits32). Strings are a higher-level
issue that should be left to front-ends and libraries.

As for literals, I would add 16-bit and 32-bit array literals:

   "..."
   "..."::bits8[]    same as "..."
   "..."::bits16[]   also allows \uHHHH escapes
   "..."::bits32[]   also allows \uHHHH and \UHHHHHHHH escapes

These don't have to be used only for strings, and there is no validation
of whether a literal is valid UTF-{8,16,32}; it is up to the front-end to
enforce that if needed.

Note that, like C99 but unlike Java, \uHHHH is only valid in literals, it
is not expanded before lexing.

I would not add any additional character literals; it is sufficient to use
integers.

-- 
David Hopwood <[email protected]>