Mail-Followup-To: LATEX-L@LISTSERV.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE
References: <4B727378.8060704@morningstar2.co.uk>
            <4B729944.5050308@residenset.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-Disposition: inline
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Message-ID:  <20100210151934.GB18188@oberdiek.my-fqdn.de>
Date:         Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:19:34 +0100
Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project
              <LATEX-L@listserv.uni-heidelberg.de>
Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@listserv.uni-heidelberg.de>
From: Heiko Oberdiek <oberdiek@UNI-FREIBURG.DE>
Subject: Re: String module
To: LATEX-L@listserv.uni-heidelberg.de
In-Reply-To:  <4B729944.5050308@residenset.net>
Precedence: list
Status: R

On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 12:32:20PM +0100, Lars Hellström wrote:

> Heiko Oberdiek wrote:
> >* Encoding conversions, see package `stringenc'.
> >  Application: PDF (outlines and other text fields).
> 
> This is, at least for the input, rather (3) or (4).

stringenc is rather (1) or (2).

> Or are you anticipating character sets larger than ^^@--^^ff for the
> underlying engine?

That depends on the requirements of LateX3:
* Are characters larger than ^^ff supported?
If no, then the character of a string is limited to 8bit.

> Then one conversely needs an "octet string" concept, for
> \special and the like.

You mean different string types:
  "octet string"
  "native string" (engine dependent)
  ...
perhaps in different forms:
  "normalized catcodes" (only 12 or 12+10)
  "unnormalized catcodes" (10/space, 11/letter, 12/other,
    perhaps 3/math 4/alignment, 8/subscript,
    7/superscript (more difficult),
    not 0/escape, 1/{, 2/}, 6/#, 9/ignore, 13/active,
    14/comment, 15/invalid).
  "LICR",
  ...

Yours sincerely
  Heiko <oberdiek@uni-freiburg.de>