diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'INSTALL')
| -rw-r--r-- | INSTALL | 37 |
1 files changed, 16 insertions, 21 deletions
diff --git a/INSTALL b/INSTALL index 25d59af7a..ceeaaed40 100644 --- a/INSTALL +++ b/INSTALL @@ -264,37 +264,32 @@ Multibyte Character Support --------------------------- Support for multibyte character sets that extend ASCII, such as UTF-8, is -under development but the code in the line editor is sufficiently stable to -be turned on by default in environments that provide full ISO 10646 support -including the preprocessor definition __STDC_ISO_10646__. In principle -this definition does not guarantee the full environment, but in practice -systems with this defined also provide suitable library support. The shell -does not probe for all the features, so on other systems use of multibyte -support must be explicitly enabled when it is available. +now reasonably close to complete, except that combining characters are not +handled properly (some assistance with this problem would be appreciated). +The configuration script should turn on multibyte support on all systems +where it can be compiled successfully. The support can be explicitly enabled or disable with --enable-multibyte or ---disable-multibyte. Reports of systems where multibyte support was not -enabled by default but --enable-multibyte resulted in a usable shell would -be appreciated. The developers are not aware of any need to use +--disable-multibyte. The developers are not aware of any need to use --disable-multibyte and this should be reported as a bug. Currently -multibyte mode is believed to work automatically on: +multibyte mode is believed to work on at least the following: - All(?) current GNU/Linux distributions - -and to work when configured with --enable-multibyte on: - - OS X 10.4.3 (problems have been reported with multibyte characters in HFS file names) - NetBSD 2.0.2 - Solaris 8+ (inputting multibyte characters from the keyboard doesn't work in some installations). - -The main shell is not yet aware of multibyte characters, so for example the -length of a scalar parameter will return the number of bytes, not -characters, and pattern tests likewise treat single bytes as if they were -characters. This means that pattern tests such as ? and [[:alpha:]] do not -work correctly with characters in multibyte character sets beyond the ASCII -subset. + - Cygwin (though use of multibyte characters is somewhat non-standard). + +The corresponding shell option MULTIBYTE is now on by default in all +emulation modes when multibyte support is enabled. Turning it off is not +recommended unless there is a particular need to examine single bytes +regardless of the locale. As the line editor bases its behaviour on the +locale regardless of the option (in order to correspond to the displayed +character set), the option should be left on during the execution of +user-defined editor and completion widgets so that the behaviour +corresponds to that of builtin widgets. See chapter 5 in the FAQ for some notes on multibyte input. |