- From: Lachlan Hunt <lachlan.hunt@lachy.id.au>
- Date: Sat, 09 Apr 2005 18:29:26 +1000
Anne van Kesteren wrote: > Lachlan Hunt wrote: > >> | In XHTML, the XML declaration should be used for inline character >> | encoding information. >> | >> | Authors should avoid including inline character encoding information. >> | Character encoding information should instead be included at the >> | transport level (e.g. using the HTTP Content-Type header). >> >> The second paragraph should only apply to HTML using the meta element, >> not XHTML using the XML declaration. > > Why? If people are still using text/xml for example you really want them > to use the HTTP Content-Type header. Otherwise its US-ASCII. I didn't consider text/xml because the current draft states in the conformance requirements. | XML documents [...] that are served over the wire (e.g. by HTTP) must | be sent using an XML MIME type such as application/xml or | application/xhtml+xml... I had initially interpreted that as meaning authors must use application/*+xml and must not use text/xml; however, that interpretation may be incorrect. Perhaps it should be explicitly stated that text/xml should not be used, with a reference to the webarch recommendation. In any case, my statement about the second paragraph still stands for XML served as application/*+xml, though it should probably apply to XML served as text/xml too. It is unclear whether or not a document served as text/xml;charset=whatever, should include the XML encoding declaration or not, but probably not because: "Transcoding may make the self-description false..." (as described in webarch). >> I think it should also be noted that authors who omit the XML >> declaration (or include it but don't specify the encoding attribute) >> *must* use UTF-8 or UTF-16, as described in the XML recommendation. > > Where did you read that in the XML specification? Appendix F.1. states [1]: | Because each XML entity not accompanied by external encoding | information and not in UTF-8 or UTF-16 encoding must begin with an XML | encoding declaration > You can always specify encoding using the 'charset' parameter. ...although I had forgotten it was acceptable to use an encoding other than UTF-8 or UTF-16 without the xml declaration when "accompanied by external encoding information", as well as being somewhat misinformed by the statement in XHTML 1.0 Appendix C [2]: | Remember, however, that when the XML declaration is not included in a | document, the document can only use the default character encodings | UTF-8 or UTF-16. Which fails to mention the condition of extenal encoding information. [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/#sec-guessing [2] http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/#C_1 -- Lachlan Hunt http://lachy.id.au/ http://GetFirefox.com/ Rediscover the Web http://GetThunderbird.com/ Reclaim your Inbox
Received on Saturday, 9 April 2005 01:29:26 UTC