* Re: Script for handling UTF-16 files
[not found] <608a349b-cc71-4cba-9197-3783049e9f47@googlegroups.com>
@ 2013-04-10 18:59 ` Karsten Blees
2013-04-11 19:11 ` Ken Ismert
0 siblings, 1 reply; 2+ messages in thread
From: Karsten Blees @ 2013-04-10 18:59 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Ken Ismert; +Cc: msysgit, git
Am 10.04.2013 01:47, schrieb Ken Ismert:
>
> I bumped into the UTF-16 display problem with Git Extensions running on top of msysGit. After lots of searching and experimenting, I came up with a solution that works for me.
>
> Note: Please see questions below.
>
> This method is for MSysGit 1.8.1, and is tested on Windows XP. I use Git Extensions 2.44, but since the changes are at the Git level, they should work for Git Gui as well. Steps:
There has been a discussion about handling UTF-16 on the git ML a while back, see http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/159708
As suggested there, I would try to use a clean/smudge filter (i.e. store UTF-16 files as UTF-8 in the repository and convert back to UTF-16 on checkout). That way git can treat your UTF-16 files as text in most cases (i.e. you can merge them, git-grep works, gitattributes work (eol-conversion, ident-replacement, built-in diff patterns...)).
If you use a textconv filter, UTF-16 content will be treated as binary by most git operations.
There's also an 'encoding' attribute and a 'gui.encoding' setting which in theory should solve your issue (i.e. specify encoding of files for display by GUI tools). I don't know if Git Extensions supports that, or whether its supposed to work for binary files at all.
> 3) Modify the global ~/Git/etc/gitconfig or your local ~/.git/config file, and add these lines:
>
> [diff "astextutf16"]
> textconv = astextutf16
Why not simply "textconv = iconv -f utf-16 -t utf-8", without the extra script?
> c) I had success with iconv, but is there any built-in UTF-16 to UTF-8 converter that ships with msysGit?
There are ready-to-use UTF-conversion functions in the codebase, but these are not accessible as a git command or built-in filter.
> As a quick fix, how hard would it be to add a 'utf16' diff filter, similar to cpp or |csharp? Or is this simply the wrong place to put in a work-around?
As described above, I think a diff filter is not the right tool for the job. The only universal format for text content that works reasonably well with established text-based technologies (merge algorithms, regex etc.) is UTF-8. If we want to benefit from these technologies, git should store text files as UTF-8 and convert from / to platform-specific formats on checkin / checkout or for display.
Bye,
Karsten
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