Re: HTML5 template: required <meta charset="UTF-8">

On Mon, 15 Oct 2012, "Gérard Talbot" wrote:
> Le Lun 15 octobre 2012 13:30, Ian Hickson a écrit :
> > On Mon, 15 Oct 2012, "Gérard Talbot" wrote:
> >>
> >> I believe <meta charset="UTF-8"> is required in HTML5 documents.
> >
> > It's also possible (and IMHO preferred) to just put the character
> > encoding
> > declaration in the MIME type.
> 
> Yes, it is.
> 
> But several HTML editors will use appropriate encoding when reading 
> <meta charset="UTF-8">: eg BlueFish 2.2.3. Otherwise, by default, the 
> charset of operating system may be used. Or the predefined charset 
> setting of the HTML editor may be used. Since creation, submission of 
> tests is definitely an international effort, we should try to reduce, 
> minimize sources of errors and sources of incompatiblity at design time, 
> at source-coding time.
> 
> Also, if/when documents are being checked by conformance checkers or 
> validators (add-on validator), they will report missing charset. Eg. 
> Firefox 16.0.1 Error console reports it. It says incorrect characters 
> will be displayed if document contains characters outside us-ascii.
> 
> In Paris, which charset are French people usually choosing? It might be 
> ISO-8859-15 and not UTF-8. In Beijing, it might well be GB18030 since 
> any new font must support GB18030: it apparently has been a requirement 
> by government.

Those are all valid points. I was just trying to correct the original 
point: <meta charset> is not required in HTML documents, so long as the 
character encoding is in the HTTP header.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'