[itsdb] [lkb] the fine system and unicode

[Stephan Oepen]

hi stefan,

> I try to set up everything for developing a Chinese grammar. I managed 
> to talk to emacs and to Prolog, but itsdb++ complains about unknown 
> words, which probably has to do with some unicode 
> interpretation/transmission problem. Before I start to examine the issue 
> further, I´d like to ask if there are any unicode related points that 
> have to be observed in the context of itsdb++ (like switches, program 
> versions, locale settings, or similar things).

getting UniCode to work in [incr tsdb()] is not much of a problem.  you
should make sure that

  (a) your [incr tsdb()] data files (skeletons or ASCII import files)
      are all coded in UTF-8.

  (b) the Lisp universe running [incr tsdb()] uses a UTF-8 locale; try
      evaluating excl:*locale* to check, and then maybe use the -locale
      command line option to the underlying Lisp image (ACL appears to
      not choose its initial locale based on the LANG shell variable).

  (c) assuming you have confirmed the above, creating a new profile and
      running `Browse | Items' should display appropriately (if not, it
      could also be due to font problems).

i presume you are using an external processor and the [incr tsdb()] C
API?  if yes, communication to and from the processing client defaults
to the active coding system in the [incr tsdb()] session, i.e. UTF-8 in
the above scenario.  it is possible to force a different coding system
for client communication by virtue of the global *pvm-encoding*, e.g.

  (setf *pvm-encoding* :utf-8)

in a per-user `~/.tsdbrc'.  however, i would rather recommend running
all processes using the same coding system, preferably UTF-8 nowadays.
in case you are running [incr tsdb()] from within emacs(1), these two
processes too must agree on which coding system to use.  the DELPH-IN
wiki and default LKB `dot.emacs' provide useful examples here.

                                                    good luck  -  oe

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++ Universitetet i Oslo (IFI); Boks 1080 Blindern; 0316 Oslo; (+47) 2285 7989
+++     CSLI Stanford; Ventura Hall; Stanford, CA 94305; (+1 650) 723 0515
+++       --- oe at csli.stanford.edu; oe at ifi.uio.no; stephan at oepen.net ---
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