RE: unicode string representation in PL

From: John (Eljay) Love-Jensen (eljay@adobe.com)
Date: Wed Jan 20 2010 - 06:36:01 CST

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    Hi Denis,

    > This is precisely my goal: that basic string methods operate at the character-level (not the byte or code unit or whatever, makes no sense for me). Ditto for more sophisticated operations like finding, replacing, etc...

    Lua is a good choice, then.

    Not because Lua supports Unicode manipulations out-of-the-box. It does not.

    But because Lua supports C API (and C++ via C API) extensibility incredibly well, and through that API you can add whatever functionality you need for your Lua-as-an-embedded-scripting-engine.

    In that regard, Lua is best-in-breed for embeddable scripting engines, especially since it has a very small on disk footprint, and small in memory footprint.

    If you wanted computer languages that support Unicode manipulations out-of-the-box, I recommend Python 3 (a scripting language, ala Perl, Ruby), or D (a compiled language, ala C++).

    Python 3 (currently at 3.1.1)
    http://python.org/
    Download at:
    http://python.org/download/

    D (currently at 1.055 (stable, GM), and 2.039 (alpha))
    http://www.digitalmars.com/d/1.0/index.html
    http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/index.html
    Download at:
    http://www.digitalmars.com/d/1.0/changelog.html
    http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/changelog.html

    I prefer D 2.0 over D 1.0, but the "alpha" status of D 2.0 may be a bit too early -- depending on your project. I am also a big fan of Lua.

    Sincerely,
    --Eljay

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