[Lazarus] Lazarus (UTF8) and Windows: SysToUTF8, UTF8ToSys... Is there a better solution?

[Michael Schnell]

On 12/20/2013 12:46 AM, Juha Manninen wrote:
> Yes, Delphi does that. Future FPC versions will do automatic 
> conversion, too, but not only to UTF-16. 

It's a long winding debate whether or not this is a good idea from a 
technical POW, but as Delphi does this, FPC seems to need to follow.

In fact there are decent positive aspects.

But it obviously is a negative aspect if TStringList and such functions 
are implemented using a fixed encoding scheme forcing conversions to and 
fro when e.g. using TStringList as an intermediate store. Here, a 
"generic" implementation (which Delphi does not provide) would be good. 
IMHO this is doable without loosing Delphi compatibility or performance.

-Michael