utf8 VS buffet

I used https://github.com/kumkee/utf8 (along with a bit of hacking) in my toy scheme interpreter to get Unicode strings.

Had to adapt some script I found to generate character class lookup functions to make it fully work IIRC and still need to plug-in some sort of copy on write mechanism since the strings managed in a shared buffer but other than that it works pretty well…if you’re into the unicorn strings that is.

Made this C lib for exactly the reasons you mention. I love C but got mad at the constant bounds errors and copying.

https://github.com/alcover/buffet

Buffet

Buffet – An All-inclusive Buffer for C\ (63 comments)

(following a discussion from https://github.com/alcover/buffet/commit/eab9648ff19483f57fd...)

> if nobody's looking, we are go

https://github.com/alcover/buffet/blob/dee3eb65f37ca07ea3d27...

And otherwise, when is it freed?

The refcount mechanism looks wrong to me: either the ownership of internal data is shared between instances (it seems it is not the case), either the owner is well defined and does not need a refcount.

It appears that the refcount is used to avoid freeing the owner data if Buffet views are still alive. But using the views after freeing the referenced data is incorrect usage anyway, so it looks like defensive programming, trading a use-after-free for a leak.