RE: Need multibyte advice - Shift-JIS

["Randall S. Becker" <rsbecker@nexbridge.com>]

On February 27, 2019 12:15, Michal Suchánek wrote:
> To: Randall S. Becker <rsbecker@nexbridge.com>
> Cc: git@vger.kernel.org
> Subject: Re: Need multibyte advice - Shift-JIS
> 
> On Wed, 27 Feb 2019 12:03:58 -0500
> "Randall S. Becker" <rsbecker@nexbridge.com> wrote:
> 
> > On February 27, 2019 11:52, Michal Suchánek wrote:
> > > To: Randall S. Becker <rsbecker@nexbridge.com>
> > > Cc: git@vger.kernel.org
> > > Subject: Re: Need multibyte advice - Shift-JIS
> > >
> > > On Wed, 27 Feb 2019 11:33:47 -0500
> > > "Randall S. Becker" <rsbecker@nexbridge.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > On February 27, 2019 11:29 Michal Suchánek wrote:
> > > > > On Wed, 27 Feb 2019 11:19:33 -0500 "Randall S. Becker"
> > > > > <rsbecker@nexbridge.com> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > > On February 27, 2019 11:11, Michal Suchánek wrote:
> > > > > > > On Wed, 27 Feb 2019 10:54:23 -0500 "Randall S. Becker"
> > > > > > > <rsbecker@nexbridge.com> wrote:
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > On February 27, 2019 9:09, Michal Suchánek wrote:
> > > > > > > > > On Wed, 27 Feb 2019 08:04:08 -0500 "Randall S. Becker"
> > > > > > > > > <rsbecker@nexbridge.com> wrote:
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > Hi Git Team,
> > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > I have to admit being perplexed by this one. I have
> > > > > > > > > > been asked to support the Shift-JIS character set in
> > > > > > > > > > file contents, comments, and logs, for a partner of
> > > > > > > > > > mine. I know there are a few ways to do this, but I'm
> > > > > > > > > > looking for the official non-hacky way
> > > > > to do this.
> > > > > > > > > > This is CLI only, and our pager, less, does not
> > > > > > > > > > support multi-byte, so I'm looking
> > > > > > > > for
> > > > > > > > > options there also.
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > SJIS is about as much multibyte as UTF-8.
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > Why do you think less does not support it?
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > Last time I looked there was SJIS locale for libc so it
> > > > > > > > > is only matter of generating the correct locales and
> > > > > > > > > using them. Of course, if you are
> > > > > > > > running
> > > > > > > > > in UTF-8 SJIS will look like garbage.
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > Sadly, I did not personally build less on this platform,
> > > > > > > > and the libc used did not include UTF-16, on the platform
> > > > > > > > vendor supplied less. cat works fine, but the usual
> > > > > > > > LESSCHARSET=utf-16 is unsupported, so I am looking for an
> > > > > > > > alternative. THAT is why I think less does not support it.
> > > > > > > > Sorry, I should have made that more
> > > > > clear.
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > cat works fine, so if I set GIT_PAGER=cat, I can at least
> > > > > > > > see the diffs cleanly in SJIS, but this partner wants a pager that is
> usable.
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > So you want to use SJIS because UTF-16 is not supported. So
> > > > > > > what is the problem with SJIS (or UTF-8 for that matter)?
> > > > > >
> > > > > > The partner I am working with is using multi-byte SJIS, which
> > > > > > is also not
> > > > > supported by this incarnation of less. As a result, UTF-8 does
> > > > > not work either in this situation. The content is definitely multi-byte.
> > > > > I know this was fixed in RedHat's Less in 2016, but did not make
> > > > > this
> > > platform.
> > > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Both UTF-8 and SJIS is multibyte and both is supported by less
> > > > > in general. If your particular less cannot support it then it is
> > > > > broken and you should fix it or get it fixed.
> > > >
> > > > To be more specific, the implementation of less' UTF-8 on this
> > > > platform will
> > > present the data as unusable junk as expected. SJIS is multi-byte,
> > > but is not one of the allowed encodings in less. I am not empowered to
> "get it fixed".
> > > Thanks for your advice.
> > > >
> > >
> > > How is this 'allowed encodings in less' defined?
> >
> > When you run less with LESSCHARSET=encoding, if the encoding is not
> known, you get the error:
> > invalid charset name
> >
> > Doing the due diligence, I actually read the man page on the platform
> before asking the question, which listed the following as the only allowed
> encodings: ascii, iso8859, latin1, latin9, dos, IBM-1047, koi8-r, next, utf-8,
> windows. The utf-8 variant does not know how to display its multi-byte
> forms in SJIS, as with other platforms. Does that make sense now?
> >
> 
> Does the said man page also mention LESSCHARDEF or LESSOPEN?

Of course it does.