I18N-ISSUE-348: Non-ASCII not permitted in extensions

http://www.w3.org/International/track/issues/348


Document: http://www.w3.org/TR/tracking-dnt


This is a WG comment.

Non-ASCII characters are not permitted in extensions. There is a note:

--
    The extension syntax is restricted to visible ASCII characters that can be parsed as a single word in HTTP and safely embedded in a JSON string without further encoding (section 6.5 Tracking Status Representation). At most one DNT header field can be present in a valid request [HTTP].
--

It's unclear why this restriction exists? Non-ASCII characters are useful in many contexts and they work in a JSON string (they can be encoded further using \u escape, but don't have to be). The limitation to ASCII-only may be helpful for other reasons, of course, but these are no spelled out. Can you clarify why extension names have a limited character set?

Addison Phillips
Globalization Architect (Amazon Lab126)
Chair (W3C I18N WG)

Internationalization is not a feature.
It is an architecture.

Received on Friday, 20 June 2014 19:13:26 UTC