Re: RFE: Please allow unicode ID chars in identifiers

[John McKown]

On Sat, Jun 3, 2017 at 8:51 PM, L A Walsh <bash@tlinx.org> wrote:

>
>
> John McKown wrote:
>
>> On Sat, Jun 3, 2017 at 4:48 PM, L A Walsh <bash@tlinx.org <mailto:
>> bash@tlinx.org>> wrote:
>> ​<snip>
>>
>

> ​OK, I did a port of BASH to an IBM "mainframe" system (IBM z) which uses
>> EBCDIC as it's character set, rather than ASCII or UNICODE. Granted, this
>> system is a very minor player to most people. OTOH, most "Fortune 500"
>> companies will have one or more "hidden away" doing some "legacy" work and,
>> now, perhaps even some mobile (smartphone, tablet) back end work. There is
>> another mid-range IBM system which also uses EBCDIC, but I don't know if it
>> has a BASH port or not.​
>>
> I know that perl which supports an ebcdic flavored machines, has full
> UTF-8 support now -- they were one of the first -- about 10 years ago,
> but no one uses ebcdic outside of ibm machines -- and those are not
> consumer or home level machines.
>
> I'm surprised you got bash ported to work with that charset though,
> and certainly I can't imagine you using an ebcdic machine as a home
> machine....are you?
>

​No. I did this for work. I actually use BASH at work on an IBM z/OS
system. Bugs my boss a little, but he allows it. I only "jumped in" when it
seemed that the OP wanted to know if _anybody at all_ could not use UTF-8.
I can use UTF-8 on the system, but it is difficult to interface between
EBCDIC (which is the majority of the data) and UTF-8 in a really easy way
and "transparent" way. It can be done, but it causes me nausea.

I know of three people who have resurrected some old IBM z hardware at
home. But they are running Linux with ASCII. The IBM z is not exactly
"married"​ to EBCDIC. But a few of the "zoned" decimal instructions are
EBCDIC oriented.
​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45X4VP8CGtk​

-- 
Windows. A funny name for a operating system that doesn't let you see
anything.

Maranatha! <><
John McKown