Unicode character names

Hello,

I am preparing a W3C publications guide, and would like to link to your
response to the question below. I plan to recommend that editors of W3C
specifications refer to characters by their correct Unicode names.

 From _The Unicode Standard, Version 3.0_ (sorry that is the latest hard
copy available to me at this time), page 101:

   "The Unicode 1.0 character name is an informative property of the
   characters defined in Version 1.0 of the Unicode Standard. The
   names of Unicode characters were changed in the process of merging
   the standard with ISO/IEC 10646. The Version 1.0 character names
   can be obtained from the CD-ROM accompanying the standard or from
   the ftp site. See also Appendix D, Changes from Unicode Version
   2.0. Where the Version 1.0 character name provides additional
   useful information, it is listed in Chapter 14, Code Charts. For
   example, U+00B6 PILCROW SIGN has its Version 1.0 name, PARAGRAPH
   SIGN, listed for clarity."

To select an example with more variables from the ftp site at
ftp://ftp.unicode.org/Public/3.1-Update/NamesList-3.1.0.txt

002E	FULL STOP
	= PERIOD
	= dot, decimal point
	* may be rendered as a raised decimal point in old style numbers
	x (arabic full stop - 06D4)
	x (ideographic full stop - 3002)

Thanks to the I18n Working Group, I learned that PERIOD is the Unicode
1.0 name, and "dot" and "decimal point" are acceptable aliases.

My question is this. Is PERIOD outdated? Is it correct to refer to this
character (.) as "full stop, dot, or decimal point, and NOT period"?
(Or is PERIOD capitalized to show it is the best alias?)

Thank you,
-- 
Susan Lesch - mailto:lesch@w3.org  tel:+1.858.483.4819
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) - http://www.w3.org/

Received on Saturday, 25 August 2001 21:39:29 UTC