Q: Is anybody here using the CYGWIN=codepage:oem setting?

[Corinna Vinschen <corinna-cygwin at cygwin dot com>]

Hi,

as the subject says, here's a question I have.

So far we have a setting in the $CYGWIN environment variable called
"codepage", which allows to switch the codepage used for file names from
the ANSI ("codepage:ansi", default) to the OEM character set
("codepage:oem").  In Cygwin 1.7 this is extended with a third setting
"codepage:utf8".

The idea is to get rid of the CYGWIN=codepage:foo setting entirely and
to use only the current locale settings of the running application.

So, for instance, if you've set the environment variable $LANG to "fr",
Cygwin would use the default ANSI codepage of the system.

If you've set $LANG to, say, "en_US.UTF-8", Cygwin would use the UTF-8
charset *iff* the application switched the codepage by calling something
along the lines of `setlocale(LC_ALL, "");'.
An application which does not call setlocale (which means, it's not
native language aware anyway) would still use the default ANSI codepage.

So it would all depend on your $LANG$LC_ALL/$LC_CTYPE settings, plus the
ability of an application to cope with native language settings.

The problem with this is, the codepage:oem setting would be dropped
without replacement.  Either ANSI or UTF-8 would stay available.

Is that feasible?  Does anybody actually use codepage:oem and thinks
that UTF-8 is no better replacement?


Thanks for your input,
Corinna

-- 
Corinna Vinschen                  Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to
Cygwin Project Co-Leader          cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Red Hat

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