On 24 May 2026, at 17:18, Martin Thomson wrote:
The text in question is this:
There are many Unicode characters that obviously cannot be displayed
(such as control characters), and many whose ability to be displayed
is debatable. If an RFC includes such characters in normative or
descriptive text, the RFC needs to also clearly describe the
character.
[...]
I might instead suggest:
There are some Unicode characters that cannot be displayed (such as
control and whitespace characters). RFCs need to describe these
characters when they appear as they cannot be rendered.
Many characters are also not widely available in the font packages
that are available to viewers. HTML and PDF formats can always render
any character that has a glyph, though that can involve additional
steps in preparation. However, the text publication format [RFC7994]
of an RFC, as well as excerpts copied from an RFC, are displayed
using the font packages supplied by the viewer, which might not
include the necessary glyphs. To account for the possibility that a
character might not be displayed correctly, RFCs need to include
descriptions of any such characters.
OK, none of that strikes me as against WG consensus and is strictly
better describing the characters in question. So an editorial change.
I might suggest shortening it a bit:
"There are some Unicode characters that cannot be displayed (such as
control and whitespace characters). Additionally, many characters are
also not widely available in the font packages that are available to
viewers. While HTML and PDF formats render any character that has a
glyph, that can involve additional steps in preparation, and the text
publication format [RFC7994] of an RFC, as well as excerpts copied from
an RFC, are displayed using the font packages supplied by the viewer,
which might not include the necessary glyphs. RFCs need to include
descriptions of any such characters."
But otherwise, unless there are objections from others, and if the RSOC
is comfortable with this late-breaking change, I'd say the editor can
throw this in (in whichever form he prefers).
pr
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Pete Resnick https://www.episteme.net/
All connections to the world are tenuous at best
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