Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!ora!bloom-beacon!dont-send-mail-to-path-lines
From: dan@ibm.COM (Walt Daniels)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: Unicode; Internationalizing char sets
Message-ID: <031691.190210.dan@ibm.com>
Date: 17 Mar 91 00:02:10 GMT
Sender: daemon@athena.mit.edu (Mr Background)
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 20

>From: harkcom@spinach.pa.yokogawa.co.jp
>   Now suppose we have a machine, A,  running the server and it has
>wchar_t defined as unsigned short. Now I remotely run a client on
>another machine, B, which has wchar_t defined as unsigned int. I use
>the display on A for the client. The client sends a text string which
>has only two bytes per character in the four byte format to the server.
>The server will draw a mess. And the reverse (server on B client on A),
>will make an even prettier mess.
>
>   Has there been an attempt to avoid this situation? If so, how?

There are no problems - read your xlib manual about the draw string
functions. They come in two flavors, 8 bit and 16 bits. The codepoints
used in the text strings of the applications get converted to the
glyph indexes into fonts by the draw operations for transmition over
the wire protocol to the server.

There are problems with cuting and pasting arbitrary strings between
clients.  Both sides must agree on a codeset.  The usual thing is to
use compound text but conscenting clients can use other codesets.