Questios about the -Cu switch (Inform 6)

Authoring Inform 6
#1

I have 2 questions about the -Cu compiler switch.

First, could it cause problems when using libraries others have written? As the default encoding is Latin-1, I guess most of the libraries out there are in Latin-1.

Since Latin-1 and UTF-8 are identical on the ASCII range, it should not be a problem if the libraries stick to ASCII characters (and use the @-substitutions). By the way, what’s the encoding of the standard library? (Unless it only contains ASCII characters, in which case it doesn’t really matter.)

Second, according to the DM4, the ZSCII characters between 155 and 251 (containing the accented letters in Latin-1) are populated according to the -C[1-9] switch. What happens when -Cu is used?

I tried looking into the source of the compiler and it would seem they’re not populated at all. I have zero knowledge of C, so it’s likely I’m wrong.

#2

The standard I6 library is all-ASCII. It’s been a long time since I looked at contributed I6 library files, but I expect most of them are all-ASCII so that they can be used with any project (regardless of -C setting).

That’s correct as far as I know. The compiler leaves it up to the author to put in Zcharacter directives.

#3

I’ve been using the -Cu switch for a very long time, especially for the translation of the Inform 6 library into French, and I’ve never had any problems. The ‘Zcharacter table’ or ‘Zcharacter table +’ directive allows you to modify or add characters to the HIGHER ZSCII CHARACTER SET (155-251).