John, I understand the flexibility of XML to use different encodings. However, I didn't realize that parsers were to allow for the possibility of different signatures. So a parser has to worry about scsu signatures, etc....
Whereas XML is so fussy about which characters it accepts, I am surprised at its flexibility for signatures. So when the parser gets JOECODE, I can understand ignoring the signature and autodetection, but exactly how does it find the first "<"? It must have to try all of the encodings known to it... ugh. tex John Cowan wrote: > > Tex Texin scripsit: > > > However, that leaves open the question whether only the Unicode > > transform signatures are acceptable or other signatures are also > > allowed. So if a vendor defines a code page, and defines a signature > > (perhaps mapping BOM/ZWNSP specifically to some code point or byte > > string) does that then become acceptable? > > IMHO yes. XML documents are not *required* to be in one of the character > sets that can be automatically detected by the methods of Appendix F. > You can encode your documents in (hypothetical) JOECODE, which uses leading > 00 as a signature (ignored by the XML parser) and then A=01, B=02, C=03, and so on. > Autodetection will not work here, but it is perfectly conformant to have > a processor that understands only UTF-8, UTF-16, and JOECODE. > > Of course some encodings, such as US-BSCII, which looks just like US-ASCII > except that A=0x42, B=0x41, a=0x62, b=0x61 will cause problems for anybody. > :-) > > I am a member of, but not speaking for, the XML Core WG. > > -- > John Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.ccil.org/~cowan www.reutershealth.com > "The competent programmer is fully aware of the strictly limited size of his own > skull; therefore he approaches the programming task in full humility, and among > other things he avoids clever tricks like the plague." --Edsger Dijkstra -- ------------------------------------------------------------- Tex Texin cell: +1 781 789 1898 mailto:Tex@;XenCraft.com Xen Master http://www.i18nGuy.com XenCraft http://www.XenCraft.com Making e-Business Work Around the World -------------------------------------------------------------
