From keld@dkuug.dk Sun Nov 17 21:50:34 1991 Received: by dkuug.dk (5.64+/8+bit/IDA-1.2.8) id AA04864; Sun, 17 Nov 91 21:50:34 +0100 Date: Sun, 17 Nov 91 21:50:34 +0100 From: Keld J|rn Simonsen Message-Id: <9111172050.AA04864@dkuug.dk> To: wg15rin@dkuug.dk Subject: pax -e comments X-Charset: ASCII X-Char-Esc: 29 Keld. ---- Keld, here are the pax -e objection texts. Hal The -e stuff is very complicated and there is a lack of standardized C language support to implement this feature. Trying to standard this at this point is a mistake. Why not place an optional record in one of the archive headers that states "this archive was created in the foobar locale" and leave it up to the recipient to handle the foobar locale. Even with -e the way it is stated, there is no guarantee that any locale but the portable one will be properly handled by recipients. ---------------------- Problem: I stated this once before -- it deserves repeating: The creeping proliferation of charmap is getting out of control. The charmap started out to be a simple and straight forward device to allow code set independent specifications of locale definitions. It is trying to generate a life of its own. It is this type of thing that causes those whose who do not have an appreciation for internationalization to oppose any and everything having to do with internationalization and characters and character sets beyond ASCII. I am strongly opposed to the -e option of the pax utility and the introduction of charmap where it should not be. The introduction of the -e option and charmap to the pax utility only serves to reduce consensus on POSIX.2. Action: Delete "[-e charmap]" from lines 9614, 9615, and 9617. Delete lines 9694-9713. Delete lines 10140-10170. ---------------------- Drop this whole mess. It's too new, I don't think that it's well thought out in the context of the full problem. The time to address this class of issue is when the new file format is addressed. When the full file format is addressed, this can be done in concert with controlling the format and having the ability to represent both very long file names and to indicate the character set in use. (The use of -e could cause distinct filenames to be truncated to the same name.) Asking for warnings when a name might not translate is OK with me.