(j3.2006) Get_Command_Argument

[Malcolm Cohen]

>How about the case of the character argument having kind == c_char in
>case c_char /= kind('A')?  Should we think about allowing that too?

No.  In this case I do not see the utility.

>I'm not advocating that we change every place that says "default
>character kind" to "default, ASCII or ISO 10646 character," but
>"get_command_argument" and "get_environment_variable" seem like
>reasonable places to allow at least character(c_kind), no matter what
>c_kind is.  These procedures are, after all, fundamentally C procedures
>that have been incorporated into essentially every operating system.

No, they are not necessarily C procedures, except maybe on Unix, and the 
concepts predate Unix (and C).

The canonical command line on some recent operating systems is Unicode, not an 
8-bit C char.

(C char is going to be a byte forever I think...)

>Maybe it would be reasonable as well to allow the file name in OPEN and
>INQUIRE statements to be of kind c_char.

No.  Again, the canonical filename on some recent operating systems is Unicode, 
not an 8-bit C char.

There certainly is some work we could do to regularise and extend our character 
set coverage, but pretending that everything now and in the future can and will 
be done in 8-bit C chars would be a step backwards, not forwards.

Cheers,
-- 
................................Malcolm Cohen, Nihon NAG, Tokyo.