[Freeciv-Dev] Re: inexplicable generate_packets error

[Jason Dorje Short <jdorje@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Raimar Falke wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 27, 2004 at 02:10:03AM -0400, Jason Dorje Short wrote:
>
> > > > And realize these string types are fundamentally different.  Someday the 
> > > > TEXT packets could use UTF-16.  But the ASCII packets will always be 
> > > > ascii.
> > >
> > > I don't see the problem handling both types the same way. I.e. you
> > > wrap your ascii strings in UTF-16 and dewrap them at the receiving
> > > side.
> > But how do you know which are which?
>
> A assume that the internal encoding for the server is known and may be
> different to the network encoding. So you have to convert both types
> anyway.
1.  No, the internal encoding for the server need not be different from 
the network encoding.
2.  There is no reason you'd need to convert ascii anyway.  Doing so is 
a bad idea.
3.  Even if you did have to convert both types, you'd still need to know 
which was which since they have to be converted differently.
> > And why do you want to turn ascii into utf-16 and double the network 
> > packet size?
> Because it is better for the maintainability that you only have one
> type. It may be better to use utf-8 for the network. Tests have to
> done.
But this is impossible anyway since we _don't_ have only one type.

IMO we are therefore better off making a clean split.  This assures that 
everyone knows just which type of string they are dealing with.
jason