UTF-8 and BOM

From: John Boyer <jboyer@PureEdge.com> Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2000 12:53:36 -0700 To: "XML DSig" <w3c-ietf-xmldsig@w3.org> Message-ID: <BFEDKCINEPLBDLODCODKEEIGCEAA.jboyer@PureEdge.com> · This archive was generated by hypermail 2.2.0 + w3c-0.29 : Thursday, 13 January 2005 12:10:10 GMT

Hi all,

After recently reading thoroughly over the latest DSig spec, I noticed
several places where we have qualified UTF-8 with the parenthetic "without
byte order mark" or words to that effect.

I'm still unsure why one would ever need a BOM for UTF-8.  I thought the
point of UTF-8 was to have a format that could provide lots of Unicode/UCS
characters but not be subject to the endian disease.

Still, I'm sure there is a reason, so could someone please explain it?

Thanks,

     John Boyer
      Development Team Leader,
      Distributed Processing and XML
      PureEdge Solutions Inc.
      Creating Binding E-Commerce
      v: 250-479-8334, ext. 143  f: 250-479-3772
      1-888-517-2675   http://www.PureEdge.com