From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mout.web.de ([212.227.15.4]) by merlin.infradead.org with esmtp (Exim 4.76 #1 (Red Hat Linux)) id 1TkRMY-0001Gg-Ub for linux-mtd@lists.infradead.org; Mon, 17 Dec 2012 03:27:31 +0000 From: Martin Walch To: dedekind1@gmail.com Subject: Re: [PATCH] mtd: nand: Kconfig: drop utf8 characters Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2012 04:27:20 +0100 Message-ID: <1568980.QkbR4hXzWB@tacticalops> In-Reply-To: <1354541353.11583.12.camel@sauron.fi.intel.com> References: <1353971245-26735-1-git-send-email-wolfram@the-dreams.de> <1353971928.2383.18@tyr> <1354541353.11583.12.camel@sauron.fi.intel.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; boundary="nextPart3677513.YEyCJF3qZI"; micalg="pgp-sha1"; protocol="application/pgp-signature" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit Cc: Scott Wood , Wolfram Sang , linux-mtd@lists.infradead.org List-Id: Linux MTD discussion mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , --nextPart3677513.YEyCJF3qZI Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Am Montag, 3. Dezember 2012, 15:29:13 schrieb Artem Bityutskiy: > On Mon, 2012-11-26 at 17:18 -0600, Scott Wood wrote: > > On 11/26/2012 05:07:25 PM, Wolfram Sang wrote: > > > The Linux Kernel Configuration system (lkc) expects 8 bit characters > > > only (declared in scripts/kconfig/zconf.l: %option 8bit). > > > > That option contrasts with being limited to 7-bit characters, not with > > accepting UTF-8. It may be that kconfig has problems with UTF-8, but I > > don't think this is why. > > Whatever has problems with UTF-8 - it is better to fix that instead of > hiding the problem by removing UTF-8 characters. The kernel configuration system does not support multibyte characters. I have not found any hint that support for multibyte characters has been specified or taken into account. In many places throughout the configuration system, only single byte characters are assumed. In bug #43067 > https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=43067 I have attached screenshots showing a problem with utf-8 characters in the interactive nconfig menu. More usage of utf-8 characters could even lead to worse problems: the flex scanner only allows the characters [A-Za-z0-9_] in symbol names. Other input will make the scanner ignore a character or refuse the input at all ("syntax error"). The handling of multibyte characters in string values depends on the configuration menu in use. menuconfig will not allow any multibyte input. When editing a predefined string with multibyte characters in it, things will break. nconfig is even worse. xconfig substitutes characters with '?'. Character counts do not work correctly. When using many multibyte characters funny things happen like text lines being cut off. To make a long story short: multibyte characters in Kconfig files lead to undefined behaviour. This is no implementation bug. The configuration system just has not been designed for processing them. So utf-8 support can not be achieved with an easy fix, but will need comprehensive changes. I do not know if anyone is willing to actually make all the necessary work to properly support utf-8 in the configuration system. However, I suppose this will not happen any time soon. Therefore I suggest removing the multibyte characters for now. Regards Martin Walch -- --nextPart3677513.YEyCJF3qZI Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc" Content-Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.19 (GNU/Linux) iEYEABECAAYFAlDOkRgACgkQM6S4K8IXn9f7RQCdHciP/YqvwpjjhMB0qvWDneUk lqMAoKOdd9wyhflZzbQnw/pNz+Fu7G2w =NLF+ -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --nextPart3677513.YEyCJF3qZI--