From: Carl Worth <cworth@cworth.org>
To: Sebastian Spaeth <Sebastian@SSpaeth.de>,
	Notmuch developer list <notmuch@notmuchmail.org>
Subject: Re: Encodings
In-Reply-To: <87zkkkx6am.fsf@SSpaeth.de>
References: <87zkkkx6am.fsf@SSpaeth.de>
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Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2011 08:03:38 -0700
Message-ID: <87box0lv05.fsf@yoom.home.cworth.org>
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On Mon, 11 Jul 2011 16:04:17 +0200, Sebastian Spaeth <Sebastian@SSpaeth.de>=
 wrote:
> The answer is that things are very implicit. notmuch.h speaks of
> strings but never mentions encodings

Much of this was intentional on my part.

For example, I intentionally avoided restrictions on what could be
stored as a tag in the database, (other than the terminating character
implied by "string" of course).

> So, can be document what encoding we are expected to pass in the various
> APIs

Yes, let's clarify documentation wherever we need to.

> For some of the stuff we read directly from the files, eg
> arbitrary headers, we can probably be least sure

The headers should be decoded to utf-8, (via
g_mime_utils_header_decode_text), before being stored in the database.

> but are e.g. the returned tags always utf-8?

No. The tag data is returned exactly as the user presented it.

> I would love to make the python bindings use unicode() instances in
> cases where we can be sure to actually receive utf-8 encoded strings.
>=20
> Encodings make my brain hurt. Unfortunately one cannot simply ignore
> them.

I think a lot of the pain here is due to some bad design decisions in
python itself. Of course, my saying that doesn't make things any easier
for you.

But do tell me what more we can do to clarify behavior or documentation.

=2DCarl

=2D-=20
carl.d.worth@intel.com

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