[ruby-core:49675] [ruby-trunk - Feature #2034] Consider the ICU Library for Improving and Expanding Unicode Support

Issue #2034 has been updated by mame (Yusuke Endoh).

Target version set to next minor


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Feature #2034: Consider the ICU Library for Improving and Expanding Unicode Support
https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/2034#change-33192

Author: runpaint (Run Paint Run Run)
Status: Assigned
Priority: Normal
Assignee: naruse (Yui NARUSE)
Category: 
Target version: next minor


=begin
 Has consideration been recently given to employing the ICU library (http://site.icu-project.org/) in Ruby? The bindings are in C and the library mature. My ignorance of the Ruby source not withstanding, this would allow existing String methods, among others, to support non-ASCII characters in an incremental manner. 
 
 For a trivial example, consider String#to_i. It currently understands only ASCII characters which represent digits. ICU provides a u_charDigitValue(code_point) function which returns the integer corresponding to the given Unicode codepoint. Were String#to_i to use this, it would work with non-ASCII counting systems, thus removing at least one of the "as long as it's ASCII" caveats currently associated with String methods.
 
 More generally, if it's desirable for String methods to properly support Unicode, and if the principle barrier is the difficulty of the implementation, then might there be at least a partial solution in marrying Ruby with ICU?
 
 If ICU is unfeasible, I'd appreciate understanding why. There are multiple approaches to what I term the second phase of Unicode support in Ruby, and it will be easier to choose between them if I understand the constraints. :-) (Of course, if a direction has already been determined, and work on it is underway, I will gladly bow out ;-)).
=end



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