[webvtt] Normalization and string identity issues [I18N-ISSUE-425]

I18N comment: https://www.w3.org/International/track/issues/425


http://www.w3.org/TR/webvtt1/#webvtt-file-structure


Various constructs such as 'cue identifier' are described as being:

--
...any sequence of one or more characters not containing the substring "-->"...
--

The document makes understood that this is a sequence of Unicode characters. However, it leaves open the question of whether different Unicode character sequences that represent the same semantic string identifier (see: Charmod [1] and Charmod-Norm [2]) are considered "the same" or not. As currently written, different UTF-8 byte sequences are considered distinct.

We would suggest that identifiers that use distinct code point sequences are considered distinct (that is, that you are what we call a "non-normalizing Specification"), which suggests that you include at least a health warning about the dangers of using different character sequences.

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/charmod/

[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/charmod-norm/

Particularly: http://www.w3.org/TR/charmod-norm/#formal-language and http://www.w3.org/TR/charmod-norm/#non-normalizing 

===

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

Internationalization is not a feature.
It is an architecture.

Received on Friday, 20 March 2015 20:26:10 UTC