iconv (linux vs solaris)

[Nadim Shaikli <shaikli at yahoo dot com>]

Bruno, we didn't know whom else to turn to regarding this potential issue.
But we believe we are seeing some discrepancies between libiconv and solaris'
implementation of iconv (and we seem to prefer solaris' output :-)

Don't hesitate to let us know what other info you'd like to see or need
to verify what's noted below (or if there are is some test code you'd like
us to run).  VIM's author is unavailable for help for the next few weeks
and we're just too eager to resolve this :-)

Many, many thanks for your help.

 - Nadim


### Mail sent to VIM's general list (vim @ vim dot org) ###

As we're working on adding Arabic to VIM (www.vim.org - still a work in
progress with lots of questions to be answered - note the 'vim-dev' list)
we've came across something very peculiar.

One of the guys helping with this effort is on a Solaris box

  uname -a: SunOS mipo 5.7 Generic_106541-15 sun4u

notes that he's able to see certain characters that we (some on linux
others on FreeBSD) aren't.  The only thing we could attribute our
short-comings to is that we are using different iconv utilities (we're
all configuring with the same options, etc) the solaris guy does NOT
have liconv (GNU's version of iconv) installed though.  The guy on
Solaris is able to see 'shaped' letters (Unicode FE70 - FEFF) if the
keymap encodings are simply set to those values.  We all can see
(Unicode 0600 - 06FF) without a hitch. So why can't linux display
Unicode FE70 - FEFF like solaris can (same VIM code) ?

To reproduce the problem, please do the following (use VIM-6.0)

1. download the font and keymap files (add the .bdf file to your fp path)
   http://www.arabeyes.org/~nadim/vim/arab_shape_bug.tar.gz

2. start vim6 (vim -g) & enable the various arabic settings
   :set keymap=arabic
   :set guifont=-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--20-200-75-75-c-100-iso10646-1
   :set encoding=utf-8

3. Press 'a' (note visible non-shaped letter)
   Press 'q' (note BOX for shaped letter -- WRONG)
   Press 'w' (note BOX for shaped letter -- WRONG)

So why is solaris able to display those shaped letters where-as
linux/FreeBSD are unable ? How to fix it ?


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