Re: rendering entities

> I think it's slightly messier than that, in that there
> seems to have developed a slight mismatch between what
> MathML intended and the resulting Unicode tables.

That's true, there is a lot of "history" that I omitted from my
reply. MathML 1.0 of course was largely developed by the original WG in
parallel with XML (ie, before XML was finished). I think some of the
wording reflects the old SGML use of character (SDATA) entities which
were not resolved by the SGML parser and could be defined by an
application to mean whatever it wanted them to mean.  XML, as finally
specified, didn't have SDATA entities and so everything has to be
defined in terms of Unicode characters, and getting sufficient
Mathematical Characters into Unicode was a long process only completed
relatively recently with the addition in Unicode 4 of some remaining
characters needed to properly support MathML (including dotless j, the
definition of which is still not reflected in the official MathML DTD as
it predates the addition of this character to Unicode).

However I think I still stand by my advice. If you want to use a double
struck C to denote the complex numbers, then it's best to use U2102
and you will get a |C and applications are likely to automatically
recognise that this is the complex numbers. If however you wish to use a
different notation (and many authors are not particularly fond of that
notation) then use a different notation, a bold C or whatever you want.
The author should be free to choose any notation he wants and not be
forced by the software to take some particular choices. The author may
decide (or not) to add some Content MathML to make the meaning of the
alternative notation clear.

Personally I am happy to use |C for complex numbers, but usually don't
choose to use d| in integrals. Whether you would call my feelings about
d| a "mild preference for using d" or "strongly object to d|" I don't
know, but whatever you call it, it has the effect that I use a normal d
in integrals:-)

David


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Received on Monday, 24 April 2006 14:04:09 UTC