Re: windows 936

[Erik van der Poel <erikv@google.com>]

Most of the Windows code pages are "supersets" of other standard sets.
But rather than adding new charset names for these supersets, it might
be better to add comments to the existing registrations to point out
the relationships between the various sets.

For example, the windows-936 registration might refer to the gb2312
one, the windows-31j registration might refer to Windows Code Page 932
and the Shift_JIS registration, the EUC-KR registration might refer to
CP 949 and the Big5 registration to CP 950. All as informative
references, rather than normative, I think.

This promotes interoperability while avoiding the addition of more
names and "virtual" aliases.

Erik

On 5/21/07, Shawn Steele <Shawn.Steele@microsoft.com> wrote:
>
>
>
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> I am looking at the registrations for the remaining 4 "system" code pages:
> 932, 936, 949 & 950.  This seems complicated since IE uses other names for
> them.
>
>
>
> For example, for 936, IE recognizes Chinese, CN-GB, csGB2312, csGB231280,
> csISO58GB231280, GB2312, GB2312-80, GB231280, GBK, GB_2312_80, iso-ir-58,
> and, of course its known to the system as 936.
>
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> Our APIs report this code page as being "gb2312"
>
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> There is an existing registration for GBK, aliases of CP936, MS936 and
> windows-936, but not of the gb2312 name.  The existing registration points
> to broken links at Microsoft and IBM.  This should probably be updated to
> point to:
>
>
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> http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/reference/dbcs/936.mspx
>
> http://www.unicode.org/Public/MAPPINGS/VENDORS/MICSFT/WINDOWS/CP936.TXT
> and
>
> http://www.unicode.org/Public/MAPPINGS/VENDORS/MICSFT/WindowsBestFit/bestfit936.txt
>
>
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> I am a bit uncertain that GBK == 936, although this is what the existing
> registration implies.
>
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> The alternative solution would seem to be to register a new charset as
> "windows-936" with the same additional aliases as the GBK registration and
> point to the above tables.  This would then also lead to the question of
> whether GBK and gb2312 should be listed as aliases for any such windows-936
> code page although the interpretation of those aliases could differ for
> other systems.
>
>
>
> My goal is to clarify the Microsoft system code page mappings such as for
> 932, 936, 949 & 950, and I'd appreciate any suggestions about how to best do
> that J
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> Thanks,
>
>
>
> - Shawn
>
>
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> Shawn Steele
>
> SDE
>
> Windows International
>
> Microsoft
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>