[Lazarus] Does Lazarus support a complete Unicode Component Library?

[Marco van de Voort]

On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 08:44:33AM +0200, Graeme Geldenhuys wrote:
> Op 2011-02-16 23:15, Marco van de Voort het geskryf:
> > 
> > There is no unicodestring(...). Ansistring(...) and
> 
> I know there currently isn't, but are you also saying that we can't
> extend UnicodeString to support UnicodeString(?) syntax? To me,
> AnsiString(?) [like is done in Delphi now], makes even less sense.
> 
> On a side note:
> DON'T bother replying if your answers is going to be the lame excuse
> "it's Delphi compatible"

Well that is my first goal. I don't care much about redundant FPC
extensions, because despite of the fierce discussion they tend to be hardly
used.

But if you want to waste some time, Florian already invited patches.

> Because if I hear that one more time, I'm really go nuts!  :) Just because
> Delphi is brain-dead, doesn't mean FPC must also be brain-dead.

Well, people tend to call braindead what they don't understand. 

> I guess the most logical would be String(?) syntax - upgrading the
> String type to be encoding aware, similar to what was done when String
> was a shortstring and then became a longstring later.

It's possible at a runtime penalty (runtime scaling of the [] operator). See
the original pre D2009 discussions. Some estimate that factor large, some
low, but all we know is that the Delphi devels were scared to go that
direction.

And IMHO there is not enough merit in the whole business to go a different
course except your Delphi compatibility allergy.