-/* If this host has wchar_t and if iconv is available (perhaps via GNU
- libiconv), then we arrange to use those. Otherwise, we provide a
- phony iconv which only handles a single character set, and we
+/* We handle three different modes here.
+
+ Capable systems have the full suite: wchar_t support and iconv
+ (perhaps via GNU libiconv). On these machines, full functionality
+ is available. Note that full functionality is dependent on us
+ being able to convert from an arbitrary encoding to wchar_t. In
+ practice this means we look for __STDC_ISO_10646__ (where we know
+ the name of the wchar_t encoding) or GNU libiconv, where we can use
+ "wchar_t".
+
+ DJGPP is known to have libiconv but not wchar_t support. On
+ systems like this, we use the narrow character functions. The full
+ functionality is available to the user, but many characters (those
+ outside the narrow range) will be displayed as escapes.
+
+ Finally, some systems do not have iconv, or are really broken
+ (e.g., Solaris, which almost has all of this working, but where
+ just enough is broken to make it too hard to use). Here we provide
+ a phony iconv which only handles a single character set, and we