On 1/23/20 7:22 PM, Jens Maurer via SG16 wrote:
>
> I'm wondering whether the SG16 efforts should leave old-style literals
> alone and focus on well-defined u8 literals, and eventually necessary
> encoding transformations to match the (runtime) environment.

There is an open question of whether the C++ community at large will be
willing to migrate to char8_t and u8 literals. Within the Linux/macOS
ecosystem, old-style literals are effectively already UTF-8. I've taken
the view that we need to hedge our bets and provide the best support we
can for each and watch where the community leads us.

Support for transcoding interfaces is actively being worked on by
JeanHeyd via P1629 <https://wg21.link/p1629> (we have a tentative plan
to provide an update on this at our next telecon on February 5th). This
addresses directive 5.1 in P1238 <https://wg21.link/p1238> (which is due
for a new revision). Directive 5.4 (briefly) discusses interaction at
program boundaries.

We've spent a fair amount of time talking about iostreams and the
transcoding support present there. It is ... not what we want. Elegant
interfaces that just DTRT in interactions with the surrounding
environment may very well require a replacement for iostreams. Further
research and prototyping are required.

Tom.

>
> Jens