Re: [XHTML-L] Re: hex FFFE at the start of UTF-16 stream

At 10:43 PM 10/4/00 +0200, Bertilo Wennergren wrote:
>What about XHTML (and other XML document types)? According to XML rules
>such a doc, without an explicit encoding declaration, should be taken
>as UTF-8 or UTF-16 (automatically detected). Do we have a clash between
>two different rule sets here? Does it matter if XHTML is served as "text/xml"
>or "text/html"? Would the rules for encodings, http versus in-doc
declarations,
>be different? If the http charset parameter says one thing, and the in-doc 
>declaration says another thing, which one should take precedence? According
>to the XHTML spec encoding info in an XML declaration takes precedence over
>meta-element charset info, but does it win over true http charset info as
>well?
>
>The current practice is to let meta charset info win over true http
>charset info, which might be in violation of the rules. This is confusing
>already. Bringing in XML declarations (and the default encoding when there
>is no XML declaration, or when there is no encoding attribute in the
>XML declaration) makes this even more confusing.
>
>I've been wondering about this for a long time. I'd like to find clear
>rules based on understandable logic, but I haven't found that yet.
>Any hope?

For a foundation, you might take a look at:
http://www.imc.org/draft-murata-xml

However, I think the HTML WG is going to have to address these with a MIME
content type registration.

Simon St.Laurent
XML Elements of Style / XML: A Primer, 2nd Ed.
XHTML: Migrating Toward XML
http://www.simonstl.com - XML essays and books

Received on Wednesday, 4 October 2000 17:07:01 UTC