I18N-ISSUE-173: Bug 18397 - Encoding Sniffing Algorithm: Clarify what "information on the likely encoding" covers [.Adhoc-HTML]

I18N-ISSUE-173: Bug 18397 - Encoding Sniffing Algorithm: Clarify what "information on the likely encoding" covers [.Adhoc-HTML]

http://www.w3.org/International/track/issues/173

Raised by: Richard Ishida
On product: .Adhoc-HTML

Bugzilla: https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=18397

Raised by: Leif Halvard Silli

About: http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/Overview#encoding-sniffing-algorithm



Please clarify what the step 'information on the likely encoding" covers.

For instance, does it cover the XML encoding declaration? Why? Why not?

In 2012, Chrome, Safari and Opera 12 still reads the XML encoding declaration
when/if the HTMl encoding declaration is lacking. 

In october 2009, Ian Hickson wrote: "So in the absence of more compelling
reasons to add this, I'd rather get  Opera and WebKit to remove the support for
this, than add more" [1]

However, it seems to me that the step "information on the likely encoding"
would cover their asses. After all, the presence of <?xml version="1.0"
encoding="UTF-8" ?> increases the chance that the encoding is UTF-8. May be the
algorithm could be specific on what is allowed and what is not allowed in this
step? 

The spec should therefore offer more data on what this step of the sniffing
algorithm refers to. Also see my blog post for more data.[2]

[1] http://lists.whatwg.org/pipermail/whatwg-whatwg.org/2009-October/023670.html
[2] http://målform.no/blog/white-spots-in-html5-s-encoding-sniffing-algorithm

Received on Wednesday, 1 August 2012 16:53:20 UTC