name = "universal_text_file"
description = "Proposed universal format for Unicode text files"
version = "20220720"

authors = ["Jeff Carter"]
maintainers = ["Bent Bracke <bent@bracke.dk>"]
maintainers-logins = ["bracke"]
licenses = "BSD-3-Clause"
website = "https://github.com/bracke/Universal-Text-File"
tags = ["format", "unicode", "text"]

long-description = """
# Universal Text File Format
Proposed universal format for Unicode text files

Here I propose a universal format for Unicode text files, specified by its Ada implementation. Some features of the format are

* ASCII code points are encoded as themselves
* At most three bytes are used to encode a code point
* All code points may occur in a line
* Lines may be any length (though the implementation is limited to Integer'Last)

I have called this format Universal Text File format, with the acronym UTF. Like GNAT Programming Studio (GPS), this result is an acronym collision. Suggestions for alternative names are welcome.

## Combined Specification and Ada Implementation
The format is specified here by its Ada implementation in package UTF, which is short and straightforward.

## Tools
Three simple tools are provided:
* To_UTF, to convert an Ada.Text_IO file to UTF
* From_UTF, to convert a UTF file into an Ada.Text_IO file
* Umore, a simple `more` program for UTF files

## Suitability
Most tools for processing text files on the major platforms work with native text files from other platforms, and UTF-8 has been widely adopted for encoding Unicode text files, so it seems unlikely that an alternative will gain much traction. However, having done this, I thought I would share it should anyone be interested.

## Standard Software-Engineering Practice
Encodings should normally only be used externally to a program. Encoded input data should be decoded immediately upon input, and output data encoded immediatly before output.
"""

[build-switches]
"*".style_checks = "No"
"*".ada_version = "Ada12"

[[depends-on]] # Avoid bug in GNAT 13
gnat = "<13.0 | >=13.3"

[origin]
commit = "d58797dfdf1818ac064eba99e999bb8cc453d389"
url = "git+https://github.com/bracke/Universal-Text-File.git"

