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unicodesmalltalkpharovisualworksgnu-smalltalk

What is the correct way to test Unicode support in a Smalltalk implementation?

Given any Smalltalk flavor, how should I proceed to check if Unicode is supported? In case of not having support, how can I detect at which level is missing (VM, font, Converter, etc)?

Solution

  • At the VM level you can try Character codePoint: 256 or Character codePoint: 65536 (some Smalltalks may use value: instead of codePoint: still). Converter APIs differ between dialects too, but chances are that if the VM supports Unicode so will the converters.

    As far as I know, no Smalltalk fully supports Unicode algorithms (case-folding, character properties, etc.), but some may support bidirectional text. For example GNU Smalltalk gets that from free from GTK+ and Pango.