index  prev  next

Long term plan

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The long term plan is for Samba to use UCS2 for all internal strings, but that is a fair way off. Converting an application the size of Samba from 8 bit to 16 bit characters is not easy, especially while trying to keep intermediate versions fully functional.

Meanwhile the plan is to follow these steps:

  1. Put a firm boundary between internal strings and strings in packets. Provide functions that push/pull strings from packets.
  2. Remove all the existing dos_to_unix and unix_to_dos conversions
  3. Provide a set of iconv-like conversion functions for converting between the necessary character sets.
  4. Perform all character-level utility functions using UCS2, converting to and from UCS2 within the function
  5. Convert some critcal functions to use only UCS2, with conversion on entry/exit.
  6. Incrementally convert more functions to UCS2
  7. As already converted functions call each other provide direct access to the UCS2 function
  8. When non-UCS2 access is no longer needed for a function, remove it
  9. Eventually, the server will be UCS2 everywhere.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CIFS2001 Seattle
tridge@valinux.com