> -----Original Message-----
> From: Austin Ziegler [mailto:halostatue / gmail.com] 
> Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2005 2:13 PM
> To: ruby-core / ruby-lang.org
> Subject: Re: Win32 Non-ASCII Filename Access

Ok, I think I see your point now.  I also noticed that the -U option
hasn't been taken yet, btw. :)
 
> >> I don't have the Ruby code in front of me, but a lot of things 
> >> probably wouldn't work quite the same if we used the 
> UNICODE macro. 
> >> String#each_byte, anyone?
> > It would be a case of caveat programmor in the case of 
> String methods 
> > and the like. If you're using unicode, then something like 
> > String#each_byte would either return 2 bytes per char, or 
> would yield 
> > two separate 8-bit chars.
> 
> But then we have two *different* versions of Ruby simply 
> based on how Ruby was compiled. If someone doesn't #define 
> UNICODE, they'll get one set of semantics; if they do, 
> they'll get another. BAD BAD BAD language.

Even if you call _A or _W at runtime based on a global variable like
$KCODE, how do you keep the String semantics identical for 1 byte versus
2 byte characters for a method like String#each_byte?

I guess I'm getting offtopic here.  If this has already been talked to
death, just point me to the appropriate ruby-talk thread. :)

Regards

Dan