[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: registration of iso-8859-15: v1.1 [MIME]

Actually, this raises a question about the Microsoft Windows code pages. They
recently added the Euro to some of their code pages (CP 125x).

They registered Windows-1250 in May 1996. Did 1250 already contain the Euro at
that time?

ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/iana/assignments/character-set-info/windows-1250

Another example: ISO 2022 has rules for revisions. If you add characters to the
set, you need to insert another escape sequence to indicate the use of the new
set.

RFC 2278 says the following:

   All registered charsets MUST be specified in a stable, openly
   available specification. Registration of charsets whose
   specifications aren't stable and openly available is forbidden.

(ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2278.txt)

But how much do people really care about this? Microsoft will probably just go
ahead and use the name "windows-1250" even if the Euro is present.

And receiving software will probably accept it.

   "Be liberal in what you accept, and
   conservative in what you send"

(ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc1123.txt)

Erik

Alain LaBonté wrote:

> Those who are planning a software update ought to be informed immediately
> though without making any noise, to prepare themselves, as after July this
> will become urgent matter in Europe.


Microsoft was the first to get back to me on my request for all
vendors to provide information on their changes and additions to 
codepages over the past 2 or so years. I thought I should reward their 
responsiveness by sharing the info. (With their permission.) To wit:

No other characters have been added to the Windows code pages other than 
the Euro and in 1252, 2 Finnish characters.

The Euro (U+20A0) has been added to only the following ten Windows 
codepages (They are all single-byte):
(Yes all at 0x80, except 1251 which is 0x88. It's not a typo.)

 	 		0x80	1250	Central Europe
 	 		0x88	1251	Cyrillic
 	 		0x80	1252	Western
 	 		0x80	1253	Greek
 	 		0x80	1254	Turkish
 	 		0x80	1255	Hebrew
 	 		0x80	1256	Arabic
 	 		0x80	1257	Baltic
 	 		0x80	1258	Vietnamese
 	 		0x80	 874	Thai

0x8E, 0x8F are defined in Code Page 1252 for the Finnish z-haceks 
U+017D, U+017E

Many thanks to Microsoft for helping us all keep up to date. Microsoft is 
working on updating the mapping tables at the Unicode FTP site with this 
information.

Tex

-- 
-------------------------------------------------------
Tex Texin                Manager International Products
                                 
Progress Software Corp.        Voice:   +1-781-280-4271
14 Oak Park                      Fax:   +1-781-280-4949
Bedford, MA 01730  USA       texin@bedford.progress.com

http://www.progress.com   http://apptivity.progress.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------
June 1-4, 1998    Americas Users Conference      Dallas, Texas U.S.A.
Aug. 17-19, 1998  Asia/Pacific Users Conference, Melbourne, Australia
Sept. 28-30, 1998 European Users Conference,     London, England
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Find out more about Progress and Unicode at the
12th International Unicode Conference, Tokyo, April 8-10 1998