X-Recipient: archive-cygwin AT delorie DOT com
X-SWARE-Spam-Status: No, hits=-0.6 required=5.0	tests=AWL,BAYES_00,DKIM_SIGNED,DKIM_VALID,RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE
X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org
X-RZG-AUTH: :Ln4Re0+Ic/6oZXR1YgKryK8brksyK8dozXDwHXjf9hj/zDNRbfA44+iwyQ==
X-RZG-CLASS-ID: mo00
From: Bruno Haible <bruno AT clisp DOT org>
To: Paul Eggert <eggert AT cs DOT ucla DOT edu>
Subject: Re: bug#7948: 16-bit wchar_t on Windows and Cygwin
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2011 19:57:06 +0100
User-Agent: KMail/1.9.9
Cc: Eric Blake <eblake AT redhat DOT com>, bug-gnulib AT gnu DOT org,
        cygwin <cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>, "bug-coreutils" <bug-coreutils AT gnu DOT org>
References: <201101310304 DOT 42975 DOT bruno AT clisp DOT org> <201102021229 DOT 04623 DOT bruno AT clisp DOT org> <4D4999BA DOT 2030100 AT cs DOT ucla DOT edu>
In-Reply-To: <4D4999BA.2030100@cs.ucla.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;  charset="utf-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Disposition: inline
Message-Id: <201102021957.07676.bruno@clisp.org>
Mailing-List: contact cygwin-help AT cygwin DOT com; run by ezmlm
List-Id: <cygwin.cygwin.com>
List-Subscribe: <mailto:cygwin-subscribe AT cygwin DOT com>
List-Archive: <http://sourceware.org/ml/cygwin/>
List-Post: <mailto:cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>
List-Help: <mailto:cygwin-help AT cygwin DOT com>, <http://sourceware.org/ml/#faqs>
Sender: cygwin-owner AT cygwin DOT com
Mail-Followup-To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Delivered-To: mailing list cygwin AT cygwin DOT com

Hi Paul,

> >   - Define a type 'wwchar_t' on all platforms, equivalent to uint32_t
> >     on Windows platforms and to 'wchar_t' otherwise.
> 
> As a minor point, would it be OK to call this type
> 'xchar_t' instead?  'x' is the successor to 'w', after all,
> and it can be thought of as an abbreviation for 'eXtended'.

'wwchar_t' means "wide wide character".

In fact it's not really an "extended" character or "complex character".
It's just what POSIX calls a 'wchar_t'.

I like the analogy between strtol and strtoll. In the beginning, people
thought a 'long int' would be enough for everything. Then they discovered
a 'long long int' is needed. The same story repeats itself here with
the "wide characters" which turn out to be not wide enough, and
"wide wide characters" are needed.

> A problem with the 'ww' prefix is that mentally I start thinking
> "World Wide ..."

Indeed this meaning can come to mind, but I think it's not dangerous
since the term "world wide" has no meaning in a programming language.

Bruno
-- 
In memoriam Carl Friedrich Goerdeler <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Friedrich_Goerdeler>

--
Problem reports:       http://cygwin.com/problems.html
FAQ:                   http://cygwin.com/faq/
Documentation:         http://cygwin.com/docs.html
Unsubscribe info:      http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple