[Haskell-cafe] Can we improve Show instance for non-ascii charcters?

[Travis Cardwell]

On 02/06/2016 12:58 AM, Michael Orlitzky wrote:
> But for the terminal? Try Ctrl-Alt-F1 to drop out of X and into a
> Linux/BSD terminal, and runghc on a file containing,
> 
>   main = mapM_ putStrLn $ [(++"の父"), (++"の母")] <*> ["田中", "山田"]
> 
> I get a bunch of grey question marks.

By default, Ctrl+Alt+F1 takes you to a "virtual console," which uses a
framebuffer with very limited memory.  Console fonts are limited to 256
glyphs, or 512 glyphs with fewer colors, which is too few glyphs for a
proper CJK Unicode font. (**tangent below**)

This issue applies to all Unicode software; it is not specific to Haskell.

Cheers,
Travis


**tangent**

It is possible to use Unicode outside of X with other software.  For
example, fbterm is a terminal emulator that selects fonts with fontconfig
and renders them using freetype2, making the usual X fonts available for
use.  Here are some (Japanese) instructions for installation:

Debian8 コンソールで日本語利用（fbterm）
http://qiita.com/mtomoaki_96kg/items/e5a946fd38f7318d3758