Re: encoding of characters in query parameters, was: Confusing use of "URI" to refer to IRIs, and IRI handling in the DOM

On Jun 30, 2008, at 3:29 AM, Julian Reschke wrote:

> Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
>> ...
>>> Understood again, but maybe it makes sense to ask the question  
>>> again, now that all browser vendors are actually part of the same  
>>> specification effort.
>> To my knowledge, using the page encoding for the query part of the  
>> URL is still required for interoperability with a number of  
>> servers. We would not be willing to break those servers.
>> ...
>
> OK, thanks for letting us know.
>
> Would you consider supporting a document-wide opt-in to use UTF-8  
> though?

Such an opt-in already exists, namely, encoding the document in UTF-8.  
I don't think adding a different kind of opt-in would be beneficial,  
since documents using it would behave differently in current browsers  
(no support for special opt-in) and future browsers. So such a feature  
would not be safely usable for a very long time, and indeed if the  
majority browser does not support it authors may create content  
accidentally that requires not respecting it. It seems to me that  
sticking to UTF-8 or using only valid URIs are the better options and  
they are available today.

Regards,
Maciej

Received on Monday, 30 June 2008 18:12:39 UTC