List of supported encodings

[GreyCat]

Transferring question from kaitai-io/kaitai_struct_formats#5:

https://github.com/kaitai-io/kaitai_struct/wiki/Expressions has this example:

seq:
  - id: filename_len
    type: u4
  - id: filename
    type: str
    size: filename_len
    encoding: UTF-8

Other than UTF-8, which encodings are supported? Would be useful to have this list documented somewhere :)

My original reply:

Unfortunately, there's no list of encodings per se in Kaitai Struct. Most of the time, encoding ID as passed as is to the target language, so it ultimately depends on the the target language.

For example:

• Java encodings
• Many languages (i.e. our C++ implementation, PHP, may be Python / Ruby) rely on system-wide iconv, which has something like this list.

It would be a good idea to make a KS "standard" of encoding names and do a hard mapping table for every supported language, but it's a fair amount of work and, as of now, it still works in 99% of cases, I guess.

[GreyCat]

Just for the record: I've tried to start collecting information on current situation with encodings, and, well, it's a mess and it's huge.

Here it is: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1l87kGi9_U4Xrgaw2CGaTc9-_f5UEf1nf-68Dk_e1_iA/edit?usp=drive_web

If someone would want to continue this work, please tell me.

[arekbulski]

There is an issue about UTF16 UTF32 specifically, related. #187