9:47 p.m.
A question for users of gretl on Windows: Do you ever use
gretlcli.exe in the Windows console (cmd.exe or "PowerShell"),
running in a language that requires non-ASCII characters to
represent gretl's output correctly?
Why I ask: Over the years we've evolved a complex and confusing
mechanism to try to get this right, by recoding output to the
(legacy) locale "code page" if necessary. (I'm not sure we always
get it right, or even that it's possible to get it right in
general.)
I'd like to get rid of the complications by, in effect, saying,
"gretl output will always be encoded in UTF-8, please deal with it."
Dealing with it, in the Windows console, means setting your "code
page" to 65001 (UTF-8).
So basically I want to know: Would this be OK? Or would it hurt a
lot of people?
(Please note: this has nothing to do with running the gretl GUI
program, it's only about running the command-line program on
Windows. It's also irrelevant for anyone running gretlcli.exe in
English.)
Thanks,
Allin
8:59 a.m.
Am 13.07.2021 um 23:47 schrieb Allin Cottrell:
A question for users of gretl on Windows: Do you ever use
gretlcli.exe
in the Windows console (cmd.exe or "PowerShell"), running in a language
that requires non-ASCII characters to represent gretl's output correctly?
Why I ask: Over the years we've evolved a complex and confusing
mechanism to try to get this right, by recoding output to the (legacy)
locale "code page" if necessary. (I'm not sure we always get it right,
or even that it's possible to get it right in general.)
I'd like to get rid of the complications by, in effect, saying, "gretl
output will always be encoded in UTF-8, please deal with it." Dealing
with it, in the Windows console, means setting your "code page" to 65001
(UTF-8).
So basically I want to know: Would this be OK? Or would it hurt a lot of
people?
I'm using gretlcli.exe regularly (in German), but only in small batch
mode, where the encoding doesn't really matter. I'm running it simply
within cmd.exe.
But maybe it would be useful to test the fairly new "Windows Terminal"
(https://aka.ms/terminal) with gretlcli.exe, under the assumption that
that has built-in Unicode support. Then perhaps gretl users could be
told: if you experience problems with your old cmd.exe, use the new
terminal for better compatibility. (Ideally.)
So, how to test what gretlcli.exe would look like in the future (with
utf8 only) ?
thanks
sven
12:35 p.m.
On Wed, 14 Jul 2021, Sven Schreiber wrote:
Am 13.07.2021 um 23:47 schrieb Allin Cottrell:
> A question for users of gretl on Windows: Do you ever use gretlcli.exe
> in the Windows console (cmd.exe or "PowerShell"), running in a language
> that requires non-ASCII characters to represent gretl's output correctly?
>
> Why I ask: Over the years we've evolved a complex and confusing
> mechanism to try to get this right, by recoding output to the (legacy)
> locale "code page" if necessary. (I'm not sure we always get it right,
> or even that it's possible to get it right in general.)
>
> I'd like to get rid of the complications by, in effect, saying, "gretl
> output will always be encoded in UTF-8, please deal with it." Dealing
> with it, in the Windows console, means setting your "code page" to 65001
> (UTF-8).
>
> So basically I want to know: Would this be OK? Or would it hurt a lot of
> people?
I'm using gretlcli.exe regularly (in German), but only in small batch
mode, where the encoding doesn't really matter. I'm running it simply
within cmd.exe.
I've reminded myself of some details. When gretlcli.exe is run we
check if (a) the console is using a TrueType font and (c) CP 65001
is selectable. In that case we set CP 65001 and arrange for all
gretl output to be in UTF-8, already. No problem.
The nasty complex case arises only gretlcli.exe is being run in a
console window with a bitmap font, or CP 65001 is not available. I'm
not sure if a bitmap font is still the Windows console default, nor
am I sure under what conditions CP 65001 wouldn't be available.
However, if you're just using gretlcli.exe with the -b (batch) flag,
and redirecting output to file, then actually the console character
encoding is in principle irrelevant. So I guess the issue I'm
talking about really only arises in interactive use of gretlcli.exe,
which I suppose would be a rarity.
Allin
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Sven Schreiber