The first note on kanji, sent to junet site in Jan 1986 and some reactions in japan

[Masayuki Ida <tansei!a37078%utokyo-relay.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>]

I am preparing a ducument on Kanji standard in japan for Common Lisp.
The concepts in it is quite natural to Common Lisp, I think.
But, I want to have opinions and advices from many persons as possible.
The key ideas are follows;
 1) include japanese-char data type and normalized-string data type.
Japanese-char type is a class for JIS 6226, and is a subtype of string-char.
(physically, JIS 6226 char occupies 2 byte each.)
Normalized-string type is a subtype of the string type, and its component characters
are of japanese-char type characters.
NOT-normalized string may contain japanese-char and other char randomly.
 2) include string-normalize, normalized-string-p, and japanese-char-p at least.
 3) char-code-limit should be greater than 16 bit to hold japanese-char character.
 char-bits-limit has not always meaningfull for japanese-char.
 4) length function invocation with japanese-char strings must return
its apparent length, not the storage length.

I think the above idea will cope with various implementations
including the usual english-text-only systems.

If you have an idea to discuss, please let me know
Thank you.

Masayuki ida
junet: ida@ccut.u-tokyo.junet
Csnet/arpanet: ida%utokyo-relay.csnet@csnet-relay


--------------------- follwoing is the reaction to the above message --------

1) Prof. Kigen Hasebe told me that there is a kind of standard for AT&T UNIX.
2) Dr. Morisaki of NTT told me that MIT LCS  had an experience to cope with
  japanese characters on their NIL in 1984 already.

Several Common-lisp(-like) implementations told me that they have facility
to cope with japanese characters with much the same idea I described above. 

At Jeida, the working group for japanese character handling in Common Lisp
started at the last april.