Re: [bug-gnu-libiconv] Missing support for ISO-6937

[Bruno Haible]

Hi,

Marian Ďurkovič wrote:
>   working on EPG implementation for VLC media player, I run into problem
> with missing support for ISO-6937 in libiconv. This affects VLC builds
> for multiple operating systems which depend on the libiconv library.
> At the same time, glibc on Linux supports this charset just fine for a
> long time - the implementation is in file glibc-2.9/iconvdata/iso_6937.c
> 
>   Would it be possible to add support for ISO-6937 into libiconv as well?

In [1] you point to a document [2] whose appendix A contains the specification
to be implemented. Most encodings needed therein are not related to ISO 6937.
The only reference is in figure A1: "This table is a superset of ISO/IEC 6937
with addition of the Euro symbol." So it's not exactly ISO 6937.

I think such a specialized encoding, defined by a Digital Video standard,
should be implemented in digital video decoding software, not in general
purpose libraries such as glibc or libiconv. See also libiconv/NOTES for
the scope of libiconv.

The implementation is not hard, by the way: The essential ingredient is a
  (diacritic, letter) -> combined diacritic
mapping table.

Bruno


[1] http://mailman.videolan.org/pipermail/vlc-devel/2009-August/064386.html
[2] http://www.vdr-settings.com/download/a038r3.tm1217r14.dEN300468.V1.8.1.pdf