[Thunar-dev] Feature request: convert file names if source and target text encoding differs.

[Péter]

Hi,

Please add to the wish list:
To convert file names if source and target text encoding differs.
(In order to fully integrate possibly differently encoded filesystems into one.)

For example, an smb: location can have utf8-encoded filenames and the local filesystem can have iso88592-encoded 
(latin2) filenames. When copying a file, then the (abstract) *characters* are to be preserved. Not the bytes. In order 
to preserve the characters, Thunar should first decode (interpret) the byte sequence, then when writing out (to a 
dirrefent location) it should encode the characters into byte sequence.

Already exists a G_FILENAME_ENCODING environment variable, but it cannot distinguish nor express different locations. 
With "G_FILENAME_ENCODING=UTF8,iso88592": when I copy a file from a utf8-location to a latin2-location then Thunar 
copies the filename byte sequence unchanged (despite that probably, in order to show the name properly, Thunar did 
decoding, from bytes to characters). When I copy a file from latin2-location to utf8-location then Thunar fails with 
"Invalid argument".

rsync do have options to translate (=preserve characters) filenames.
"--iconv=LOCAL,REMOTE"  "Rsync can convert filenames between character sets using this option."

smbnetfs also has config options for converting filenames.
> Module options:
>    [iconv]
>        -o from_code=CHARSET
>               original encoding of file names (default: UTF-8)
>        -o to_code=CHARSET
>               new encoding of the file names (default: UTF-8)

I cannot (of course) surely determine exactly which software component's business is (should be) such a glueing. Please 
feel free to determine (forward this request to the proper recipients). (It may be, for example, "gvfs-mount" or such 
component.)

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