Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!rpi!uupsi!sunic!isgate!krafla!frisk
From: frisk@rhi.hi.is (Fridrik Skulason)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: How about some input from non-english countries?
Message-ID: <3261@krafla.rhi.hi.is>
Date: 17 Jun 91 09:41:22 GMT
References: <3245@krafla.rhi.hi.is> <1991Jun15.124052.17827@cbfsb.att.com> <NELSON.91Jun16163116@sun.clarkson.edu>
Reply-To: frisk@rhi.hi.is (Fridrik Skulason)
Organization: University of Iceland (RHI)
Lines: 29

In article <NELSON.91Jun16163116@sun.clarkson.edu> nelson@clutx.clarkson.edu (aka NELSON@CLUTX.BITNET) writes:
>How about it, you non-English speakers?  Give us English-speaking programmers
>a break and tell us what we need to do to get our programs to work on your
>computers...

Here is a short list...

1) Don't mask the 8th bit away - even though you don't use it, it does not
   mean that it is not needed elsewhere.

2) If you plan to provide support for other code pages than CP 437, don't
   attempt to make your program aware of all the code pages - you will
   miss some.  

3) Instead, the following information should be user-definable:

    a table for the toupper() function - DOS only provides this if you
	are using 3.0 or higer.

    a table for the tolower() function - not provided by DOS.

    a table for the isalpha() - even if a character above 127 is not
	alphabetic in your character set (CP 437), it does not mean it
	is not alphabetic anywhere else.

4) If you provide any translation between code pages, (if the program is a
terminal emulator, for example) make them fully user-definable.

-frisk