diff --git a/text/0000-cwstring.md b/text/0000-cwstring.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000000..c68fc5ca432 --- /dev/null +++ b/text/0000-cwstring.md @@ -0,0 +1,72 @@ +- Feature Name: A type representing an owned C-compatible wide string +- Start Date: 2016-10-20 +- RFC PR: +- Rust Issue: + +# Summary + +Add CWideString/CWideStr for more simple interaction with not well-formed UTF-16 +external API (for example: with Windows API). + +# Motivation + +This RFC born from issue: [rust-lang/rust#36671](https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/36671) + +Many of Windows API use not well-formed UTF-16 strings. Some of this API use +null-terminated strings. + +Rust lack simple null-terminated UTF-16 string conversions and now working with this +API need too many boilerplate copy-paste code like: +``` +unsafe fn from_wide_null(ptr: *const u16) -> OsString { + let mut len = 0; + while *ptr.offset(len) != 0 { + len += 1; + } + OsStringExt::from_wide(slice::from_raw_parts(ptr, len as usize)) +} + +fn to_wide_null(s: &str) -> Vec { + self.encode_utf16().chain(Some(0)).collect() +} +``` + +OsString also can't be used with Windows API directly, because it stores string internally +in WTF-8 encoding. + +So, this RFC try to add simple and effective way to work with UTF-16 string. + +Also it can be usefull: + + * Inside Rust OsString implementatino on Windows platform; + * With Java FFI (Java internally use UTF-16 strings). + +# Detailed design + +Copy CStr/CString as CWideStr/CWideString with using u16 instead of u8. + +A preliminary implementation can be found at: https://github.com/bozaro/rust-cwstring + +# Drawbacks + +This classes is not generally platform specific, but it mostly useful on Windows. + +Also CWideString name can be confused, because it use differ element size then +`std::wstring` in C++ world (`std::wstring` type defined as `std::basic_string`, +but `sizeof(wchar_t)` is platform depended: 4 bytes on Linux, 2 bytes on Windows). + +# Alternatives + +Keep all as is. + +# Unresolved questions + +I try implement CWideStr/CWideString and got some issues/questions: + + * NulError is copied as WideNulError, but it breaking currect code or name convensions. + * into_string method is removed, because unlike CString, he does not give the performance + profit. Also IntoStringError is not copied from c_str. + * I don't find good name for `u16` method like `to_bytes`. + * memchr and strlen replaced by wmemchr and wstrlen failback implementation. + * May be need better implementation fmt::Debug for CWideStr. + \ No newline at end of file