Unicode support?

[Άκης Γεωργιάδης]

Hi! :-)

Does xblite has unicode support for X files?
Eg. I was looking today the hello program from XBLite Book of Knowledge (http://guy.lonne.perso.sfr.fr/xblite002.html).
Normally it compiles and runs OK.
If I save the HELLO.X as unicode (from Notepad), it can't be compiled and XBLite returns 2 errors:
(Outside Functions and Syntax errors).
http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/8768/errorrl.png

G.

[David Szafranski]

Currently, there is not support to save or use unicode
formatted xblite files.  You can use unicode functions within
xblite, but all .x files must be saved as ascii text files.

D.

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[Άκης Γεωργιάδης]

Then consider it a feature request! :-)

ANSI format is OK, but in Win7 (I'm not sure for other versions), in order to display non-Latin characters at command prompt, you have to select one of the 2 other unicode fonts (not the default raster one).

Eg. PRINT "ABCDE" will work OK and print ABCDE as expected, but PRINT "ΑΒΓΔΕ" (the first 5 Greek chars) will only display semigraphics and mojibakes.

There is no problem of course in GUI programs.

THANKS!!! :-)
G.

[Grella]

Before you digress into "code Pages" and "Ansi" and UTF-8, let me put an alert here for the developers.
XBasic started as a Windows application with a fair amount of x86 assembler code.
Xblite is an offshoot, geared to Windows only.
The world has adopted something called Unicode, which is a 16 bit (in fact, now 21 bit) standard  character set for the whole world.
The whole world consists of a majority of people in living in areas where they need at least a 16 bit character set.
Microsoft, very wisely, switched to a 16 bit character set internally with windows XP and has continued in that direction with windows 7.
The ONLY sensible thing to do is to change the Internals of Xblite and adopt 16 bit standard as the character set, and use Microsoft's enormous help libraries. This will require rewrite of a lot of character and string level routines, if xblite is based on 8 bit Characters.

[Άκης Γεωργιάδης]

Hi! :-)

1) I just realized what went wrong at the first place, with XBLite installation! :-)
After running install (and setting the PATHs), windows needs a reboot in order to see the changes.
After all these years from config.sys era, windows still needs a reboot, in order to see them.
Funny! :-)


2) I just found that powershell has more capabillities than bare bones console.
Specifically it can display non-Latin characters (Greek in this case), that the usual console can't.

Just a note:
I don't know why, but only the PowerShell ISE (its IDE actually), has this abillity. The usual PowerShell can't display these charsets.
Here is a screenshot showing the ISE running a simple program:
http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/217/pshellise.png
(Note the "press ^C to exit at bottom bar. At console mode, the program waits for an Enter in order to exit to console. The message "Press Enter to quit" cannot be seen though.
Also note the prefix .\ in order to run EXEs from powershell).

Greets!!! :-)

G.




Τη Δευτέρα, 5 Νοεμβρίου 2012 7:22:14 π.μ. UTC+2, ο χρήστης Άκης Γεωργιάδης έγραψε:

[Άκης Γεωργιάδης]

And what I forgot to mention, is that ABCDEF.X is ANSI formatted.
No need for unicode.

G.


Τη Δευτέρα, 5 Νοεμβρίου 2012 7:22:14 π.μ. UTC+2, ο χρήστης Άκης Γεωργιάδης έγραψε:

[Άκης Γεωργιάδης]

CORRECTION:
Wrong info! SORRY!!! :-)

No need to reboot actually. A log-off and back on, should be enough in most cases.

[Grella]

This statement illustrates exactly the kind of attitude that has bugged not only xblite, but many other development language.
The attitude I am referring is the "European" attitude.  There was ASCII, then the "European" attitude forced creation of ANSI.

Microsoft very wisely decided on a "World" attitude and adopted the 16 bit Unicode standard LE16 (16 bit Little Endian).
Now if you advocated BE16 (16 bit Big Endian) it would be understandable, except that the i86 processors, all use LE method of access to memory.
If you advocated 32 bit Unicode, that would be perfect, but a little more  difficult to implement.
If you advocated UTF-8 it would be understandable; at least, that is the way Internet uses character in most recent browsers.

In a Unicode thread, to bring back ASCII OR ANSI as a desirable solution is turning the clock back.

On Monday, November 5, 2012 12:22:14 AM UTC-5, Άκης Γεωργιάδης wrote: