From: Austin Ziegler <halostatue@...>
Date: 2006-06-28T23:11:39+09:00
Subject: Re: Unicode roadmap?

On 6/28/06, Dmitrii Dimandt <dmitriid@gmail.com> wrote:
> I wonder, what is wrong with making all strings Unicode by default
> (this will ensure that most libraries don't automagically break once
> Ruby is upgraded), _but_ let developers optionally decide whether they
> want a different encoding:
>
> s = new String #=> unicode string
> sj = new String(:encoding => 'jis')
> scp =  new String(:encoding => 'CP1251')
> sb = new String(:binary => true) #=> work as ByteArray
> sbf = new String(:encoding => 'funny encoding', :binary => true) #=>
> work as ByteArray

IIRC, any "unknown" encoding will be treated as a binary string where
you're responsible for dealing with "characters".

I have suggested to Matz that we adopt the u"string" format so that we
have a literal constructor for Unicode strings (which is by far the
more common need).

-austin
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