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in reply to Re^6: How to reverse a (Unicode) string
in thread How to reverse a (Unicode) string

You have to always decode. Note that Unicode is a list of integers with a meaning. iso-8859-1 is an encoding (of a subset of Unicode). UTF-8 is also an encoding. UTF-16 is another. It just happens that for the first 128 code points, the encoding in iso-8859-1 and UTF-8 are identical. But that wasn't part of Juerds claim.

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Re^8: How to reverse a (Unicode) string
by ikegami (Patriarch) on Jan 10, 2011 at 16:38 UTC

    You have to always decode.

    No, you don't have to with US-ASCII and iso-8859-1.

    But that wasn't part of Juerds claim.

    I agree. He didn't mention any relation between the first 128 characters of iso-8859-1 and UTF-8. No idea why you bring this up.

    iso-8859-1 is an encoding (of a subset of Unicode)

    Unicode is a character set, not an encoding, so that sentence is broken.

    iso-8859-1 is both a character set and an encoding. The iso-8859-1 character set is a subset of the Unicode character character set, but this property does NOT explain why iso-8859-1 works without being decoded.

      No, you don't have to with US-ASCII and iso-8859-1.
      Sure you do. It's not a difficult encoding, but it still is an encoding.
      Unicode is a character set, not an encoding, so that sentence is broken.
      Wait. You are saying that a sentence of the form "X is an encoding of Y" is broken in English is Y isn't an encoding?

      I guess that "UTF-8 is an encoding of Unicode" is equally broken. For the reason that Unicode isn't an encoding in that sentence either.

        Sure you do

        Why do you keep insisting there's a need to apply an identity function? Or are you saying decoding ASCII isn't an identity function? It's hard to tell since you're nay-saying without any explanation.

        You are saying that a sentence of the form "X is an encoding of Y" is broken in English [if] Y isn't an encoding?

        I seem to have misread what you said. (Perhaps I missed the "of"?) Striken.