Re: [RFC][DISCUSSION] Remove utf8_decode() and utf8_encode()

Hi! >> utf8_decode()/utf8_encode are, at best, extremely misleading names. >> Many uses of them in my experience go something like this: "I have an >> encoding problem, it's something to do with UTF-8, I'll try >> utf8_encode; hm, that didn't work, I'll try utf8_decode instead". I still think if one does it without even reading one-line description in the manual, they deserve what they get. I know people will click on any binary that says "please click on me, honestly I'm not a trojan" but programmers are supposed to know a little better? Like not running functions they don't know what they do, even without reading one-line description? > They are certainly used in many, many places; but I would wager that > almost all of those uses are broken because they make no effort to > confirm that 8859-1 is the right source / target encoding. I think > deprecating (but not removing) them might be sensible, because it would > discourage this broken logic. Deprecating - maybe, since there are better alternatives to it anyway (like iconv or recode), but I don't see much point in removing unless we have no usage at all. -- Stas Malyshev smalyshev@gmail.com