Re: BOM in UTF-8

On Wednesday 22 June 2005 15:59, Chris Lilley wrote:
> Hello www-validator,
>
> I noticed this tip in validator results for XHTML:
>
>    The Unicode Byte-Order Mark (BOM) in UTF-8 encoded files is known to
>    cause problems for some text editors and older browsers. You may want
>    to consider avoiding its use until it is better supported.
>
> I think this is outdated and over cautious; the XML specification
> clearly allows a BOM in UTF-8 content[1] and many editors use it to
> distinguish Unicode from legacy encodings. If anything it should be
> encouraged rather then discouraged.

I'm not sure who is responsible for the tips.  But thinking at least of
editors like vi or pico that run in a terminal, they can support unicode
if the terminal does, but is it reasonable to *expect* them to support
BOM as well, if they don't know/care about XML?

(that's a straight question, not a rhetorical one.  I don't know the answer,
neither do I know the current status of the editors I named).

-- 
Nick Kew

Received on Wednesday, 22 June 2005 16:08:00 UTC