GB18030 Standard

Summary of Change

System level support has been provided to allow for the input, storage, retrieval, display and printing of the set of characters defined in the GB18030 character set standard.

GB18030 support has been provided in HP-UX 11i v1.6 via new locales, iconv converters and fonts and modifications to Xlib, CDE, input methods, printer model files, LDTERM, and the eucset command.

Two new bitmap fonts have been provided to display all the characters defined in GB18030 in CDE and the X Window System. The Simplified Chinese input method, xsim, has been enhanced to generate all GB18030 characters. The printer model file is also enhanced to print all the GB18030 characters on PCL5-capable LaserJet printers even if the printer does not contain any simplified Chinese fonts.

Details of Change

A new locale, zh_CN.gb18030, has been provided to enable support of GB18030.

New iconv converter tables have been provided to support data conversion between GB18030, Unicode and UTF-8.

List of converter tables:

Commands:

The eucset command has been enhanced to set the code widths required for GB18030 that are used by the Streams PTY line discipline module (LDTERM) and dtterm.

PCL5.nloo is a printer model file that works with the lp subsystem to print text files containing Asian multi-byte characters on a LaserJet (PCL5 emulation) which does NOT have any multi-byte font DIMMs installed. PCL5.nloo is enhanced to print text file containing 2-byte and 4-byte characters whose patterns are defined in GB18030, and Mongolian, Tibetan, Yi and Uigur characters when zh_CN.gb18030 is designated to one of print options.

	NOTE: PCL5.nloo does not use any Asian font DIMMs even if the LaserJet has the font DIMM installed.

Here is a list of primary print options related to GB18030.

Since PCL5.nloo extracts the necessary glyph patterns from simplified Chinese TrueType fonts through the X font server, it is required to install those TrueType fonts and invoke xfs in advance to run lp command. Otherwise, no 2-byte and 4-byte characters can be printed.

The following TrueType font is provided to support printing of GB18030 characters:

Please refer to the section on Asian TrueType fonts for more details.

Input Methods:

Xsim, an input method for simplified Chinese designed to work with CDE and the X Window System, has been enhanced to generate GB18030 2-byte and 4-byte characters in two ways, Internal Code and PinYin input methods.

The Internal Code (hexadecimal code) input method supports generating all the characters in the valid code ranges defined for GB18030, regardless whether a pattern is defined or not, except for those defined in GB2312. In the Internal Code method, if the first two key inputs are from 81 to FE and the following two key inputs are from 40 to 7E or from 80 to FE, then xsim generates one 2-byte character immediately after the fourth key is entered. If the first two key inputs are from 81 to FE and the following two key inputs are from 30 to 39, xsim waits for another set of four key inputs, ranging from 81 to FE as the next two key inputs, and 30 to 39 as yet another two key inputs to generate one 4-byte character immediately after the eighth key is entered. Xsim beeps for any non-hexadecimal keys during four or eight key inputs.

The PinYin input method supports generating GB18030 2-byte characters only; it does not support 4-byte characters.

Other input methods like Row-Column and 5-Stroke do not generate GB18030 characters except for those defined in GB2312.

Xlib:

X11R6 has been enhanced to support GB18030.

Fonts:

The following two new bitmap fonts are provided under /usr/lib/X11/fonts/hp_chinese_s/75dpi along with fonts.alias:

The song18u.pcf and song24u.pcf fonts contain all the 2-byte and 4 byte characters whose patterns are defined in GB18030, including Mongolian, Tibetan, Yi and Uigur characters. Those characters are assigned to the code points defined in ISO10646-1:2000. The fonts are designed to be used for simplified Chinese so the font names include -cn in the CHARSET_ENCODING field to distinguish them from other iso10646.2000 fonts designed for other regions/countries.

CDE:

CDE provides support for the new Chinese locale, zh_CN.gb18030. Users are able to select the new locale at the time of login. CDE provides localization of all CDE components similar to the zh_CN.hp15CN locale and the user are able to input, display and print GB18030 characters.

Streams PTY driver:

The Streams PTY line discipline module (LDTERM) has been modified to support GB18030. It is activated by the eucset command and is used by dtterm to process and display GB18030 characters. There is no direct user interaction with this driver.

Impact

Base GB18030 offering (installed on all systems): Approximately 25MB.

No additional memory requirements are needed for running in the zh_CN.gb18030 locale.

Applications must elect to enable GB18030 support by setting the LANG environment variable to the zh_CN.gb18030 locale.

Systems level software localization support for GB18030 is provided at the same level as for the other supported Simplified Chinese locales: zh_CN.hp15CN and zh_CN.utf8.

Compatibility

There are no compatibility issues involved with the addition of this feature.

Performance

There is no impact to performance.

Obsolescence

Not applicable.

Documentation

The eucset(1) manpage has been updated with the GB18030 option.