On Mon, 2 Feb 2004, srintuar wrote:
> >Again, you or I might not *approve*, but there is no question of what the
> >UTF-8 spec now says. An implementation which does not conform to the spec
> >should not use a label which implies that it does.
>
> It is possible to implement part of a spec an still conform to it.
Most specs are quite explicit about what must be done to conform to them,
and implementing only the parts you like typically does not qualify.
> When implementing a generic I/O facility for a programming language,
> in addition to erring on the side of flexibility, it's a matter of
> interpretation as to which portion of the spec is strictly required.
Not if you want to honestly claim conformance to the spec -- then it's
usually the spec which tells you that. You can have a conforming mode and
a nonconforming mode, or an implementation which is conforming only when
certain options are set correctly, but that's not the same thing.
> Certainly, being flexible enough to handle "internal use only" code
> points will not break comatibility with the spec, since it is
> entirely possible to use a pipe internally.
For conformance with the spec, there ought to be at least an option to
flag such code points as errors, since that *is* called for by the spec
when using the facility for external I/O. (Moreover, it is good software
engineering practice to catch such code points whenever they are not
legitimate; ignoring errors does nobody any favors.)
Henry Spencer
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
--
Linux-UTF8: i18n of Linux on all levels
Archive: http://mail.nl.linux.org/linux-utf8/
