Command line parameters

[Ben Peddell]

On 12/06/2012 8:59 PM, John Emmas wrote:
> Thanks Hin-Tak and Dan but I think we're at crossed purposes now. 
> Remember that my original question had nothing to do with paths. I
> simply used paths as a convenient example. My question is about
> command-line parameters and (more specifically) about UTF-8 string
> conversion.  Here's an example.... Consider a Windows user whose
> name is Göran. The UTF-8 byte sequence for this is:-
> 
> 47 C3 B6 72 61 6E   --   (6 bytes)
> 
> whereas Windows would expect something like this (depending on the 
> user's locale):-
> 
> 47 F6 72 61 6E   --   (5 bytes)
> 
> Let's suppose that a Linux app launches a Windows child process 
> (via Wine).  The (Linux) host app needs to pass the string "Göran" 
> as one of the command-line parameters.   Linux uses UTF-8 and will 
> therefore pass the first sequence of bytes to Wine (6 bytes). But
> Windows doesn't understand UTF-8.  A Windows app would expect the
> second byte sequence (5 bytes - or 10 bytes for a Unicode app).

By "Linux uses UTF-8" you're saying that you have a UTF-8 locale active.

> 
> Does Wine carry out the necessary conversion or does it simply
> pass the original byte string unmodified?  That's what I'm trying
> to find out.  Thanks.

Wine first converts the command-line to Unicode according to the
active host locale.

Then any character set conversion from Unicode to ANSI or vice versa
within the application is done according to the active Windows locale.

If the Wine process needs to execute a native process, Wine converts
the command line from Unicode using the active host locale.

The default character set under Linux is ISO-8859-1, while the default
character set under Windows is Windows-1252, which has all of the
printable characters in the same places as in ISO-8859-1, with some
extra printable characters in the C1 (0x80..0x9F) area.

If no host locale is specified (i.e. the locale is POSIX), and the
default Windows locale is used, then the only available characters an
ANSI Windows program will be unable to be passed are the extra
characters in the C1 area.  All unrepresentable characters are
replaced with question marks [?].

-- 
Ben Peddell
IT Support Bowen, Collinsville and Proserpine Catholic schools
http://klightspeed.killerwolves.net/