[MathML-last-call2] RE: BOM in plain text data transfer

Hi Karl,

After discussion it, we agree with you.  We have removed the sentence
"Similarly, the BOM SHOULD be omitted for Unicode text encoded as
UTF-16."

/w3ccvs/WWW/Math/Group/spec/xml/world-interactions.xml,v  <--
world-interactions.xml
new revision: 1.73; previous revision: 1.72

If you could acknowledge this is acceptable as a resolution of your
comment for our last call report, we would appreciate it.

--Robert



> -----Original Message-----
> From: www-math-request@w3.org [mailto:www-math-request@w3.org] On
> Behalf Of Robert Miner
> Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 2010 9:44 PM
> To: Karl Tomlinson; www-math@w3.org
> Subject: RE: BOM in plain text data transfer
> 
> Hi.
> 
> I think the language was originally motivated by some interoperability
> problems between several existing applications, but you may very well
> be
> right that interoperability would be better served by not prescribing
> the behavior in the spec.  We are looking into it, and it's on our
> weekly agenda, so we'll get back to you shortly.
> 
> --Robert
> 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: www-math-request@w3.org [mailto:www-math-request@w3.org] On
> > Behalf Of Karl Tomlinson
> > Sent: Monday, June 14, 2010 5:32 AM
> > To: www-math@w3.org
> > Subject: BOM in plain text data transfer
> >
> > I was a bit surprised to see the recommendation "the BOM SHOULD be
> > omitted for Unicode text encoded as UTF-16" for inter-application
> > data transfer at
> > http://www.w3.org/TR/MathML3/chapter6.html#world-int-transf-flavors
> >
> > I can understand the spec giving recommendation re the content of
> > the transfer, but I tend to think of the BOM marker more as
> > packaging for the content, and IMO it doesn't seem right for the
> > spec to specify how plain text should be transferred.
> >
> > Is the assumption here that the platform will have some other
> > mechanism, such as a charset specification, to indicate the byte
> > order?
> >
> > I infer from the surrounding context that the motivation for this
> > recommendation is legacy applications.
> >
> > However, I thought of the BOM more as an indication of the
> > encoding used in the data transfer so that an application can
> > decode the binary data (converting to its own internal encoding)
> > to extract the content.
> >
> > I should confess that I haven't researched the conventions here,
> > but thought it was easier to raise the issue now than later to
> > check that this is going to be practical.
> >
> > If the situation that led to this recommendation is only relevant
> > on platforms where the flavor name already indicates the encoding,
> > then maybe this recommendation should be restricted to such
> > platforms.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Karl.
>

Received on Thursday, 17 June 2010 15:19:50 UTC