[xml/sgml-pkgs] Bug#273600: After switch to native transcoder, KOI8-R support in xerces23 is broken

[Nikita V. Youshchenko]

>  2.  Does this happen if you use the icu version of xerces, available
>      in the libxercesicu23 (or libxercesicu25) package?  If these
>      work, are they a possibility?

With libxercesicu23 problem is not reproducable. It may be a workaround for 
now, but requires 'icu' package to be installed manually.
Anyway, see below.

> It's possible that the native transcoder supports fewer encodings, but
> we found a handful of other problems that went away when we switched
> from gnu to native.

I've checked the code, by re-building package with debugging symbols and 
using gdb on the test attached to the original bug report..

Actualy, 'native transcoder' does not support any encodings at all!

If library is configured to use 'native transcoder':
- In XMLPlatformUtils::makeTransService() routine in 
util/Platforms/Linux/LinuxPlatformUtils.cpp", 'IconvTransService' object 
is created to use are transcode service;
- When this object is asked to create actual transcoder, it unconditionaly 
fails. See IconvTransService::makeNewXMLTranscoder() at 
util/Transcoders/Iconv/IconvTransService.cpp

I believe the transcoder switch should be reverted. Removing useful 
features is not the proper way to deal with bugs.

> If this problem is no longer present with xerces25 or it is not
> present with the icu version of xerces, my inclination is to close
> this without taking any action.  Would that be okay with you?  Thanks!

I believe bugs should not be closed until they actually are there packages.
If bug is not there in one package, it can't be a reason to close bug 
against another package. If libxerces25 or libxercesicu23 don't have this 
bug, it should not be opened against those packages. But as long as 
libxerces23 has this bug, it should be opened. Or better fixed.

If you really really think that supporting encodings is not important to 
you, at least you should explicitly mention that in package description
(I really want localization-related bugs to become RC one day, to make 
package maintainers take them seriously... but that's just a dream...). 
However, a better solution is to re-enable encoding support (revert 
transcoder change) and make real fixes for bugs "closed" by change.