> [Original Message] > From: Asmus Freytag <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > At 12:19 PM 3/29/2004, Ernest Cline wrote: > > > > >UAX #14 makes a rather definitive statement on this issue, albeit > >in an obscure place, in Section 3: Introduction. > > 4.0.1 will amend that section to correct the wrong impression that NBSP is > fixed width and to clarify that this statement is not intended to cover any > specialized cases, but just ordinary typographical conventions: > > I'm sorry if the fact that the placement and context of text was not enough > to guide the reader. Note that the 'obscure place' was in the > introduction (!) of the UAX, where it was a mere note on a subject not > actually covered by the UAX (i.e. line layout) that nevertheless forms > the context in which linebreaking happens.
True, but it was the only guidance on the subject that is present in Unicode 4.0.0, and there do exist widely used applications that do treat NBSP as a fixed width space.
Can you elaborate?
HTML treats it as a fixed space in terms of the underlying source (spaces and line endings, but not NBSP can be coalesced under some circumstances in HTML). But that's a source file issue, not a statement on how to treat the NBSP in line justification.
So, if you can, please provide more details as to when and where and how.
Still, there is a need for a fixed width space with a width equal to the unjustified width of a normal space .
Perhaps you would like to elaborate where and when that is used. What problem does a fixed width space solve? Are those circumstances where it flows with the line, or are those uses limited to tables?
With NBSP being ruled out for that job, that leaves FIGURE SPACE, MMSP, and FOUR-PER-EM SPACE as the closest alternatives, but none of them are guaranteed to be exactly that width, even if they are available.
Figure space should be as wide as a digit, MMSP is something else, and I don't know whether FOUR-PER-EM is the width of a typical space.
I suppose suspending justification for just one space via a higher-level protocol could work, except I'm not aware of any such protocol that works at a fine-enough grain to do that.
Justification is usually a paragraph level property and therefore if a fixed width space is required, that would be the wrong approach.
Also, one could by that argument also argue that many of the current fixed width spaces could be handled by higher level protocol as well.
Perhaps a possible U+2064 NONJUSTIFYING SPACE would make sense with line breaking class BA like most of the other fixed width spaces. (I would have preferred proposing U+205E to place it adjoining MMSP, but that code point is already in the pipeline.)
It might be useful if you could write this (and the supporting evidence for it) up as proposal. That would give the basis for either recognizing a missing character and adding it, or, alternatively for UTC to recommend some other practice.
A./
