LDAP and UTF-8

[Andrew Bartlett]

Juergen Hasch wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I am using the NET ADS USER command in Samba head to list the users stored
> in a Win2K ADS. Some user names contain non-english characters encoded in UTF-8
> format which don't get displayed correctly. Winbindd has the same problems.
> 
> I added the some UTF-8 helper functions to lib/chrcnv.c to be able to convert
> UTF-8 to unix.
> 
> Would someone comment on
> a) is there another (better) way to convert from UTF-8 to Unix than
> using convert_string(...) and adding the pull_ and push_ wrapper functions ?

This looks like the right way to do it.  If I understand correctly, the
UTF8->UTF8 case should be a no-op and thetas the most common situation. 
(Unix is normally set to utf8).

> b) what is the difference between CH_UNIX and CH_DISPLAY, when should I
> convert to CH_DISPLAY instead of CH_UNIX ?

CH_DISPLAY is designed for our user interactive utilities and swat. 
This is because the 'unix' encoding (often HEX for Japanese) isn't
suitable for humans to read.

> c) are there platforms without iconv, so this will possibly break things ?

We have our own iconv for the common case - but if you don't have iconv
you lose internationalization support.

So you would use this new code to go from 'utf8->unix' in winbind, and
'utf8->display' in ads user.

While I have been paying attention (and am willing to apply this patch)
somebody more involved with the internationalization stuff may wish to
comment.

Andrew Bartlett
-- 
Andrew Bartlett                                 abartlet at pcug.org.au
Manager, Authentication Subsystems, Samba Team  abartlet at samba.org
Student Network Administrator, Hawker College   abartlet at hawkerc.net
http://samba.org     http://build.samba.org     http://hawkerc.net