Re: [RFC PATCH v1 03/10] arch-x86/pmu.h: convert ascii art drawing to Unicode

[Jan Beulich <jbeulich@xxxxxxxx>]

On 25.07.2025 17:06, Edwin Török wrote:
> Use `aa2u` (ascii-art-to-unicode from Hackage) to convert to
> Unicode box drawing characters.
> 
> The full list of supported drawing characters can be seen in the
> examples at:
> https://github.com/fmthoma/ascii-art-to-unicode/blob/master/src/Text/AsciiArt.hs
> 
> For future maintenance: conversion can be done incrementally
> (mixing ascii art with already converted Unicode,
>  and running the conversion tool again), or by hand.
> 
> No functional change.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Edwin Török <edwin.torok@xxxxxxxxx>
> ---
>  xen/include/public/arch-x86/pmu.h | 120 +++++++++++++++---------------
>  1 file changed, 60 insertions(+), 60 deletions(-)

I'm already unconvinced of the earlier patch: The whole construct isn't self-
explanatory, and it lacks a legend. There's also the question of legibility.
The change here has the main problem of making readability dependent upon the
capabilities of the editor / viewer / etc one is using. For example, the '┆'
character as well as the arrow ones I can't get Win10's console subsystem to
display properly.

In addition this pretty extensive use of Unicode chars then raises a concern
that was brought up for the binutils project a little while ago [1]. As I
have indicated in replies there, isolated uses may be appropriate in certain
cases. A larger comment like the one here is different though, as the
slipping in of problematic characters (now or in the future) might go
unnoticed.

Jan

[1] 
https://inbox.sourceware.org/binutils/72219ed1-147d-4dd3-b503-363d981528a2@xxxxxxx/