[OT] character encodings in Mac OS x (was Re: svn: Can't recode string)

On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 09:21:50 -0500
Scott Palmer <scott.palmer@2connected.org> wrote

> On Jan 19, 2005, at 3:17 AM, Joel wrote:
>
> [ ... ]
> > For LANG, it would be something like
> >
> > export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
> >
> > I think. If you're on Jaguar, or just like tcsh, you'll need setenv
> > instead of export, I believe.
> >
> > Hmm. I don't see LOCALE set on my linux box, either.
>
>
> If you hit Commad-i in a terminal window or select "Show Info" form the
> terminal's File menu on Panther (OS X 10.3) then select "Display" in
> the combo box there is some interesting information.

True.

> What I found interesting is that my Character Set Encoding is set to
> "Unicode UTF-8".

Very likely so.

> Though I could not cut and paste the asian characters
> from you email sig to the terminal and have it do anything useful.

As in trying to name a file with those characters, or trying to enter
them as text in vi? (That's the name of the company I work for.)

I've succeeded in naming and displaying file names in Japanese in the
Mac OS X shell. Don't remember offhand how I did it, or if I was able to
do both with the same settings. The problem is that Apple is fighting
with legacy file system stuff in shift-JIS, which, of course, does not
display very well when trying to display Unicode of any encoding.

(What do you do when a removable volume's file names are all shift-JIS
and the volume gets mounted on a file system that is Unicode? Well, you
could alter the file system to say it's Unicode if it is, and assume
it's a legacy encoding if it doesn't say it's Unicode, but which
language, which encoding? The logic quickly gets rather twisty.)

Those characters were shift-JIS, by the way, because of the default
settings for a Japanese mail browser in MSWhatever.

> There are lots of options for font selection as well though, and I
> didn't bother playing around with them. I was using Monaco Regular
> 10pt. and had the checkbox "Wide glyphs for Japanese/Chinese/etc."
> checked.

Check your foreign language settings in the system preferences. You have
to have Japanese enabled there before you can get shell to display or
accept it. But the stock vi won't allow typing in Japanese, IIRC.

The Text Edit app does rather well, but you'll need to look for settings
there, too. Among other places, check for pop-up menus in the file open
dialog if you need to be able to do a foreign language.

--
Joel Rees   <rees@ddcom.co.jp>
digitcom, inc.   $B3t<02q<R%G%8%3%`(B
Kobe, Japan   +81-78-672-8800
** <http://www.ddcom.co.jp> **
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