Re: GtkFileChooser and UTF-8

["Peter \"Firefly\" Lund" <firefly diku dk>]

On Fri, 3 Sep 2004, Hubert Sokolowski wrote:

> > see the discussion at the top, then g_filename_to_utf8()
>
> I don't think so. maybe I didn't explain it well. here are the problems:

I /do/ think so.

> 1. I create a file from let say xterm, the filename has characters from
> my local character set. when I open a gtkfilechooser the filename is not
> displayed correctly.
> 2. I create a directory from a gtkfilechooserdialog also with
> foreign characters. then the name of the directory is displayed
> correctly, but only in a gtkfilechooserdialog. in xterm it is not.
> I attach 2 screenshots showing the problem with creating directory.

GTK+/Gnome expects filenames to be in UTF8 encoding.  And rightfully so.
It is the only really sensible encoding there is but unfortunately not the
only one used - ISO 8859-1 (or -15!) is probably the most used of the not
so sensible ones.

There is no encoding marker attached to each filename so there is no way
of knowing with absolute certainty how a filename is supposed to be
interpreted.

Programs can be parochial and just assume the author's encoding or they
can make a guess if it can't be UTF8 or they can look at an environment
variable (which I believe is the current Red Hat workaround for this
situation).  Neither solutions are particularly good.

-Peter

PS: Few of my filenames use characters outside 7-bit ASCII but many of
those who do are encoded using 8859-1 :(  I still haven't transitioned
everything over to UTF8 yet.  One of these days...