Re: [VE][410] Error Message Feedback

BHA in L.A. wrote:
> Validating Error [410]: "reference to non-SGML character"
> 
> RECOMMENDATION: ADD A CHECKBOX TO OMIT THE “WARNINGS” ABOUT NON-ISO
> CHARACTERS (or merely to tally their total number).  

Recommendation: Please learn more about such issues and correct your 
mistakes before you complain about them.

> DISCUSSION:
> I /choose/ to use the Windows-1252 character set despite all your advice.
> (Compatibility with the occasional old browser is one reason.)

Rubbish.  Windows-1252 is not recommended /because/ it is not supported 
by the occasional old browser.  It is a proprietary character encoding, 
which may not be supported by a lot of browsers; particularly 
non-Windows based browsers (though, newer browsers on other systems have 
probably been forced to support it anyway)

> IT IS /SO/ ANNOYING TO SWIM THROUGH HUNDREDS OF CHARACTER “WARNINGS” JUST TO FIND THE
> DOZEN REAL ERRORS I NEED TO ADDRESS!

They are real issues, there is no need to become agitated.  The problem 
is that character references like &#nnnn; and &#xnnnn; do not accept the 
code point of the character from the document's character encoding. 
They refer to the code point within the Unicode character repertoire 
regardless of the character encoding you're using.

Instead of using ’ for a right single quotation mark, for example, 
you should, ’ (decimal) or ’ (hexadecimal).

> Yes, maybe I will accidentally write &quote; instead of "
> or write an erroneous Uni-code number. /That/ kind of error message IS useful.

So are the the warnings you are receiving.  You have just failed to 
understand the reasoning behind them and incorrectly jumped to the 
conclusion that that are not your problem to deal with.

You may find these articles useful to help you understand the issue better.

http://lachy.id.au/log/2005/10/char-refs
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/www/windows-chars.html#list

-- 
Lachlan Hunt
http://lachy.id.au/

Received on Friday, 11 November 2005 07:09:15 UTC