Re: Guile integration and UTF-8

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Paul Smith <address@hidden>
> Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2013 22:31:29 -0400
> Cc: address@hidden, Lars Ljung <address@hidden>
> 
> I haven't made a formal definition, but I'm seriously leaning towards
> declaring that makefiles are UTF-8, always, and not supporting other
> encodings.

Given that the difference is using scm_file_encoding instead of
scm_from_utf8_string, I don't see the reason why we should impose such
a restriction.  Using "-*- coding: -*-" cookies is quite commonplace
in the Free Software world, so it's not like Make will suddenly invent
a new protocol.  We can use UTF-8 as the default, in the absence of a
cookie, which I think will do what you want without unnecessarily
restricting those who might need a different encoding.

If you wonder when a non-UTF-8 encoding might be needed, then imagine
a Makefile which invokes some utility with a non-ASCII string argument
in a locale that isn't UTF-8.  Also, for arguments that come from the
Make command line (as in "make FOO='bar'") the string will come in the
locale's encoding, which will not always be UTF-8; in that case,
assuming UTF-8 is wrong, and we should use scm_c_eval_string as we do
now.  I'm sure there's any number of similar use cases out there.

>From Emacs's experience, it is very important to get this stuff right
the first time (Emacs didn't), otherwise users become very annoyed.
Therefore, I suggest a serious discussion before any decisions are
made.