Minor Description
A set of state information is required about byte streams representing characters to be able to handle them properly.
The basic pieces of information are:
- is bufferable
- is position aware
- data offset
- current byte position
- current char position
- byte length
- char length
Additional info:
- encoding
- max allowed length
- bytes per char information
The information is chosen with UTF8Reader in mind, and the plan is to pass a CharacterStreamDescriptor instance to the constructor to allow the reader to configure itself appropriately. The information is expected to be valid only at a specific point in time, as some of it will change as soon as the reader starts working with the underlying stream.