Re: New work item for XML group ? (Re: Comments on 31 March spec)

Dave Peterson wrote:

  A question we need to address is:  "What should an XML system do
  when
  presented with a numeric character reference for a character for
  which
  it has no internal representation?"

I think all proper XML systems should be 16-bit. If a system can only
handle 8-bit
characters, it is not world-ready, and should not be of interest to this
SGML-on-the-Web
group.  Let the dead bury the dead.

(This is not not to say that 8-bit SGML tools will not be useful for
processing and generating
Western XML documents; merely that they only work partially, on a subset
of possible XML documents.)

  A second question we should be asking is:  "Should XML permit
  numeric
  character references using non-SGML (i.e., undefined in the document

  character set parameter) character numbers?"  This determines just
  how
  one should write the document character set parameter for XML's SGML

  declaration.

What is the status of the SGML declaration of the XML 1.0 draft?
I think it should be the exemplar declaration, and  every creator of an
XML document should be able to assume that every good XML system
implements it.

Rick Jelliffe

Received on Sunday, 13 April 1997 06:16:27 UTC