Re: Tcl9: source files are interpreted as utf-8 by default

On Wed, 8 Jan 2025 19:32:24 -0000 (UTC), Rich wrote:

Instead of main.tcl sourcing set_encoding.tcl, starter.tcl runs some
'encoding' command then sources main.tcl. Basically, a wrapper. 

>
Yes, that works.  But then Uwe has to go and "wrapperize" all the
various scripts, on all the various client systems.  So he's back in
the same boat of "major modifications need be made now" as changing all
the launching instances to launch with "-encoding iso-8859".

True, but he has considered that kind of effort. His words:


"That means we have to add "-encoding iso8859-1"
to ALL source and ALL tclsh calls in ALL scripts.
So far, so good(or bad?)."

"What initially seems quite doable, looks more and more scary
to me. First, if we ever may switch encoding to utf-8 we
have to alter all those lines again."


So in my mind, the "customer" accepts (though grudgingly) making
large scale changes, but is concerned with possible new changes
in the future. A wrapper can handle the future quite gracefully.

I've resisted pointing this one out, but long term, yes, updating all
the scripts to be utf-8 encoded is the right, long term, answer.  But
that belies all the current, short term effort, involved in doing so.

Actually, when I mentioned my migration case, I was also thinking that
I could afford to do it because I was migrating to Linux and utf-8 was
not even the future anymore, it was pretty much the present. But maybe
running iconv wouldn't be acceptable because Uwe is (I assume) on
Windows. Does a Windows user want to convert his files to utf-8?
Won't that cause problems if the system is iso-8859-1? Windows still
uses iso-8859-1, right?

So yes, I guess Tcl9 causes trouble to 8859-1 users. Yes, sounds like
it needs some fixing.

More suggestions: how about not using Tcl9 just yet? I'm stil on 8.6
and the water is fine. Early adopters tend to pay a price. In my case,
absent packages.

I have my own special case, I use Debian 9 which only ships 8.6.6 so
I had to build 8.6.15 from source because I really need Unicode.
But for some time I used Freewrap as a single-file batteries included
Tcl/Tk interpreter. So maybe Uwe should just use a different interpreter,
likely just a slightly older version of Tcl/Tk and embrace Tcl9 later.

I wonder if one can hack the encoding issue on the Tcl9 source and
rebuild it.


--
Luc

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