Re: unibyte<->multibyte conversion [Re: Emacs-diffs Digest, Vol 2, Issue 28]

[Stefan Monnier]

>     Using decode-coding-string is just as easy and makes things much
>     more clear so we should encourage it.
> 
> I don't see how it makes anything clearer.  It would tend to make the
> documentation less clear.  Right now there are two (perhaps in the
> future three) functions, each of which has a doc string saying what it
> does and what it's good for.  Where would that info go if we make the
> change you recommend?

The change I suggest is to obsolete those functions and to recommend
decode-coding-string instead, which has a perfectly good docstring
itself and so do each and every coding-system that you might want to
pass to that function.
I don't understand your question.  When people use string-FOO-multibyte
it's generally because they don't understand what's going on and they
think "a char is a char is a char and I don't get this multibyte madness":
using decode-coding-string would force them to better understand what's
going on.

        
        Stefan