Re: The mapping of phi

Neil Soiffer wrote:

> That even sort of applies if you use the Unicode value for the 
> character.  Because Unicode changed the glyph associated with the code, 
> any font that was developed and not updated before that change has the 
> wrong character at the &phi and &phiv positions.  

I'm sorry. What happened?!

This makes no sense at all. Unicode does not define *any* glyphs for 
*any* characters, and never has. It maps abstract characters to code 
points. That's all. What glyph is used for those characters is a font 
choice. Unicode cannot change a glyph becuase it never assigned a glyph 
in the first place.

I suppose different printings of various books may use different fonts, 
but this is in no way normative.

> So, depending upon the 
> font, the glyph for 3c5 may be a GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI (an "open" curly 
> phi) or GREEK PHI SYMBOL (a "straight" phi).  See [7] for more details.
> 

Possibly, but none of this changes the fact that υ is the Greek 
small letter upsilon. I suppose you meant φ ? In Unicode that's 
the small Greek letter phi, whatever glyph is assigned.

-- 
Elliotte Rusty Harold  elharo@metalab.unc.edu
Java I/O 2nd Edition Just Published!
http://www.cafeaulait.org/books/javaio2/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0596527500/ref=nosim/cafeaulaitA/

Received on Wednesday, 2 April 2008 14:33:27 UTC