This package provides an additional binary format for Linux: scripts
which start with an UTF-8 signature (aka BOM), i.e.  with the byte
sequence \xef\xbb\xbf#!.

This is particularly useful for scripting languages which recognize
the BOM, e.g. Python. With Python 2.3 or newer, scripts with the UTF-8
BOM are considered UTF-8 enocded without the need for an addition
encoding declaration.

The package consists of a wrapper binary, /usr/lib/utf8script,
and a mechanism to register the wrapper with Linux' binfmt_script
machinery. Therefore, this package requires that binfmt_script
is available on the system.

The package is distributed under the terms of the GPL.

Installation
------------

Installation can work in two possible modes: By default, an init
script is installed into /etc/init.d/utf8script, and should be
executed in the appropriate runlevel. Alternatively, on Debian
systems, the package installs configuration files for the
binfmt-support package. For this configuration option,
--enable-binfmt-support needs to be passed to configure.

As the wrapper is invoked for every invocation of an UTF-8 script, it
is desirable that it itself is very lightweight, i.e. that it is small
and does not require shared libraries. If dietlibc is available on the
system, the Makefile will use it to create a small-footprint binary.

Martin v. Lwis
martin@v.loewis.de