From: Patrick Thomson <pthomson@...>
Date: 2010-05-22T07:02:43+09:00
Subject: Internal string storage and Encoding::Converter#convpath

Hi, everyone:

In #rubyspec we were discussing whether the specifications are correct for Encoding::Converter's convpath method. Since MRI uses UTF-8 internally, the #convpath method shows that it converts to UTF-8 for an intermediate step:

Encoding::Converter.new('ascii','Big5').convpath
 => [[Encoding::US_ASCII, Encoding::UTF_8], [Encoding::UTF_8, Encoding::Big5]]

Is the fact that MRI uses UTF-8 for its intermediate steps between incompatible encodings an implementation detail, or is it desired Ruby behavior?

Thanks very much,
-- Patrick Thomson