Escape sequences before encoding declarations

In ISO 2022, we can put redundant escape sequences for US-ASCII *BEFORE* 
encoding declarations.  Even when an XML processor can handle that encoding 
(e.g., ISO-2022-JP, ISO-2022-KR, ISO-2022-CN), it is probably 
unable to handle encoding declarations and die, if autodetection is required 
(i.e., no charset parameter is available).

Is such an XML processor merely non-conformant?  Or, did it encounter a error 
or fatal error?  4.3.3 of XML 1.0 has a sentence as below:

>It is a fatal error when an XML processor encounters an entity with an 
>encoding that it is unable to process.

In the above case, the XML processor can handle ISO-2022-JP, but cannot 
handle escape sequences.  One could argue that this is not a fatal error 
or error.

Cheers,

Makoto
 
Fuji Xerox Information Systems
 
Tel: +81-44-812-7230   Fax: +81-44-812-7231
E-mail: murata@apsdc.ksp.fujixerox.co.jp