Re: How to read Russian HotsyncID...

[Ken Krugler]

Hi Jeff,

Thanks so much for the info.  The problem then is that there's no 
universal standard as to how multicharacter characters might be 
implemented in a different country.  It depends on their hack.

The issue is that the person will enter their hotsync ID to get a 
registration code to unlock the game.  This process uses the web's 
method of handling the special character, which I've found to use 
UTF-8. If the person's Palm also uses UTF-8, then there's no issue - 
buffer matches buffer.  But if the person's palm doesn't use UTF-8, 
then the unlock code won't work, and there's no general way to know 
how the person's hotsyncID is really stored.
OK, the fact that they're entering the HotSync ID via a web page is 
useful information. So the real problem is that the algorithm used to 
calculate a registration key (on the web server) is getting the text 
in UTF-8, and thus the key that it generates from that data doesn't 
match what the verification code calculates on the device, right?

There's a related issue, in that the HotSync ID entered on the 
desktop will use the desktop's legacy character encoding, but this 
might not match the device's character encoding. But that's a less 
common situation, as if they aren't in agreement, then you can't use 
the desktop software to view data synced from the device.

I can think of a few possible solutions to this problem:

1. I think you can force the web page to POST using the PC's legacy 
encoding. For a Russian user, this would be CP1251, which should 
match what they're using on the device.

But from what I remember, there are some browsers and desktop 
versions where this doesn't work properly.

2. Always submit using UTF-8 (Unicode). Ask the user what language 
they're using on their device, and include that information in the 
POST. Then use ICU or similar utility code to convert from UTF-8 to 
the device encoding, which you should be able to derive from the 
user's language.

Pretty painful amount of work for the number of users it would help.

3. Always submit using UTF-8. Anything > 0x7F gets mapped to a 
generic character code. Do the same thing on the device.

This weakens your validation algorithm, as it folds a bunch of 
different character code points together.

4. Always process everything using UTF-8. On the device, convert the 
user's HotSync ID from the device encoding to UTF-8 before you do 
your validation.

This won't work on versions of Palm OS earlier than 3.5.2, because 
there's no TxtConvertEncoding support (though you could handle the 
Latin case yourself, which would cover most of your users). Also some 
3rd party hacks don't implement proper support for this call in their 
patches.

Perhaps Palm could use the same format they use with localization 
resource overlays with HotsyncIDs.
Not sure what this means. Overlays are localized using the device's 
character encoding. The HotSync ID is assumed to be in the same 
character encoding as the device for the reason describe above.

-- Ken

Ken Krugler wrote:

SUMMARY:  How does the PalmOS store Russian characters in a HotsyncID?


That's up to the 3rd party hack used to provide Cyrillic support on 
a Palm OS device. I'm guessing they just use Windows code page 1251.

DETAIL: My PalmOS app reads the HotsyncID using
DlkGetSyncInfo(NULL,NULL,NULL,pszBuffer,NULL,NULL);
This works for any 8-bit character set, which covers most European
characters and accents, but of course not Asian characters or dead keys.


dead keys?

And why doesn't it work with multi-byte characters? You're just 
reading the user name into a string buffer, right?

 But I just got my first customers with Russian characters in their
HotsyncIDs, which breaks my code because it only sees the ASCII.


What do you mean by "only sees the ASCII"? If your code only works 
with 7-bit ASCII then yes, you'd have a problem with Cyrillic.

Russian characters can be stored using UNICODE or UTF-8,


They could use UTF-8, but I don't think that's the encoding being used.

so I was
wondering what format the PalmOS uses to store Russian characters, and
whether or not they would show up using DlkGetSyncInfo?
All I need to be able to do is encode the bytes representing the Russian
characters and my code will work, but I have no idea how they are
represented on the Palm HotsyncID.  (Or I need to know how
DlkGetSyncInfo will reveal Russian characters and then my program will
also work.)


Are you sure your code works with 8-bit characters? That's where 
I'd look first.

-- Ken


--
Ken Krugler
TransPac Software, Inc.

+1 530-470-9200
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How to read Russian HotsyncID...

[Jeff Diamond]

SUMMARY:  How does the PalmOS store Russian characters in a HotsyncID?

DETAIL: My PalmOS app reads the HotsyncID using 
DlkGetSyncInfo(NULL,NULL,NULL,pszBuffer,NULL,NULL);
This works for any 8-bit character set, which covers most European 
characters and accents, but of course not Asian characters or dead keys. 
But I just got my first customers with Russian characters in their 
HotsyncIDs, which breaks my code because it only sees the ASCII.

Russian characters can be stored using UNICODE or UTF-8, so I was 
wondering what format the PalmOS uses to store Russian characters, and 
whether or not they would show up using DlkGetSyncInfo?

All I need to be able to do is encode the bytes representing the Russian 
characters and my code will work, but I have no idea how they are 
represented on the Palm HotsyncID.  (Or I need to know how 
DlkGetSyncInfo will reveal Russian characters and then my program will 
also work.)

Anyone's advice is much appreciated!
Thanks!
- Jeff


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Re: How to read Russian HotsyncID...

[Jeff Diamond]

Ken,

Thanks so much for the info.  The problem then is that there's no 
universal standard as to how multicharacter characters might be 
implemented in a different country.  It depends on their hack.

The issue is that the person will enter their hotsync ID to get a 
registration code to unlock the game.  This process uses the web's 
method of handling the special character, which I've found to use UTF-8. 
If the person's Palm also uses UTF-8, then there's no issue - buffer 
matches buffer.  But if the person's palm doesn't use UTF-8, then the 
unlock code won't work, and there's no general way to know how the 
person's hotsyncID is really stored.

Perhaps Palm could use the same format they use with localization 
resource overlays with HotsyncIDs.

- Jeff

Ken Krugler wrote:

SUMMARY:  How does the PalmOS store Russian characters in a HotsyncID?


That's up to the 3rd party hack used to provide Cyrillic support on a 
Palm OS device. I'm guessing they just use Windows code page 1251.

DETAIL: My PalmOS app reads the HotsyncID using
DlkGetSyncInfo(NULL,NULL,NULL,pszBuffer,NULL,NULL);
This works for any 8-bit character set, which covers most European
characters and accents, but of course not Asian characters or dead keys.


dead keys?

And why doesn't it work with multi-byte characters? You're just 
reading the user name into a string buffer, right?

 But I just got my first customers with Russian characters in their
HotsyncIDs, which breaks my code because it only sees the ASCII.


What do you mean by "only sees the ASCII"? If your code only works 
with 7-bit ASCII then yes, you'd have a problem with Cyrillic.

Russian characters can be stored using UNICODE or UTF-8,


They could use UTF-8, but I don't think that's the encoding being used.

so I was
wondering what format the PalmOS uses to store Russian characters, and
whether or not they would show up using DlkGetSyncInfo?
All I need to be able to do is encode the bytes representing the Russian
characters and my code will work, but I have no idea how they are
represented on the Palm HotsyncID.  (Or I need to know how
DlkGetSyncInfo will reveal Russian characters and then my program will
also work.)


Are you sure your code works with 8-bit characters? That's where I'd 
look first.

-- Ken




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