[RFC] Signed/unsigned character arrays are not strings

[Robert Dewar]

Nick Roberts wrote:

> That answers the question that we are really asking and justifies the patch.

Not necessarily. First it is only a claim, without documentation,
second, any incompatible change seems basically problematic. I
prefer to avoid this incompatible change, it seems like it would
be a surprise to a substantial number of users. For sure the use
of unsigned char for character data is pretty common.
> 
>  >                 We can document how to produce string output more
>  > clearly in the manual, perhaps?

I would instead document more clearly how to produce the integer
output.