Re: [pcre-dev] [Bug 1295] add 32-bit library

>>The idea is this: the programme that's using the pcre32 API wants to
>>use it on some data it has. That data isn't only used for matching
>>however, ie it may also be displayed, etc, and the programme has
>>therefore stored some flags into the unused-by-UTF-32 high bits of the
>
>Wow, wow... stop it right there.  Back in the seventies, when we used such techniques, they were
>already considered IMPOLITE (or shall we say, downright wrong).  And in those days, both core
> (actually real CORE) memory and disk (usually tape) space were expensive so there was some
> twisted justification for that behavior.

This is a good point. If you have enough free space for utf-32 (where you waste 2-3 bytes for nearly all characters), you probably don't need those extra bits. I worry about the performance loss. On most machines you need two-three instructions to do that masking. Does anyone plan to use this?

Regards,
Zoltan