On 12/08/2012 03:57 AM, Raymond Toy wrote:
"Far" == Far <Far> writes:
>> The next release of the SCL integrates comprehensive support for >> reading a text file character encoding from an Emacs style coding >> attribute. The support was contributed to public domain CMUCL if >> you wish to examine it. This allows 'load and 'compiler, and the >> debugger, and many editors, to also use the correct encoding. >> The new external-format has been named :file-attribute. It has >> not been decided if this will be the :default, but a separate default >> will be provided for lisp source files. I am open to working with >> other vendors on standardising the support, but there has been >> little interest. >> Far> I believe I saw an earlier version of it. Is it in the current version Far> of CMUCL from CVS?No. The code was checked into git, but backed before the release and hasn't been re-enabled. While it's pretty cool, we wonder if it would not be better handled as an external library.
If a CL implementation does not want the burden of implementing the reading of the file attribute then it also has the relatively good option of supporting just UTF-8 and asking users to use this and asking users to transcode lisp source files to UTF-8. If library authors include a coding file attribute in their source then this conversion can be easily automated, and it should be easy for quicklisp to do this transcoding when unpacking a library. Quicklisp could also include some auto-detection and hints to help with legacy code that does not have the coding file attribute - last time I checked a few hints were needed.
Regards Douglas Crosher