RE: Z39.50 character encoding

I think the contents of a record is guided by the OID, not by Z39.50. As far
as I know record syntaxes come with their own character set. (UNIMARC with
Extended Latin, MARC21 with ALA.) Probably this is not always true, but I
really think that we ZIG should not involve ourselves with the returned
records unless they are private Z39.50 like SUTRS.

Geac is very much interested in this discussion. Currently we assume that
all clients use Windows and therefore send ANSI characters. We also assume
that the client prefers to receive ANSI (in the scan for example.) Of course
this is a bad solution but so far it works.

I don't think a new attribute is a good solution because the problem is
everywhere: ImplementationId/ImplementationName, Scan, CloseReason,
Additional Diagnostic Information, ...
I don't think an option bit is a good solution either. I really think we
need something more sophisticated character set negotiation. 

We could discuss further offline with the people who have an interest in
character set discussion


Pieter van Lierop
Geac

> -----Message d'origine-----
> De : Ashley Sanders [mailto:zzaascs@irwell.mimas.ac.uk]
> Envoyé : mardi 26 février 2002 10:12
> À : zig
> Objet : Re: Z39.50 character encoding
> 
> 
> Ray Denenberg wrote:
> 
> > (a) Assign an option bit for utf-8 encoding.
> > (b) Define an attribute for the encoding of a
> > search term.
> > (c) Do both.
> 
> I guess I prefer an option bit. Howevever...
> 
> > Option bit
> > If this bit is negotiated it would pertain to
> > retrieved data as well as the search term.
> 
> ...if a utf-8 option is negotiated between origin
> and target is it possible for me to subsequently
> return a UKMARC (or other national format) record? 
> MARC21 is not a problem as you can have unicode
> MARC21 records, but UKMARC records "use an
> extended ASCII (8 bit) character set". There
> is no MARC leader byte in UKMARC to indicate
> an alternative unicode/utf-8 encoding.
> 
> Would a request for a particular record syntax
> override any utf-8 option bit set at Init time?
> 
> Ashley.
> 
> -- 
> Ashley Sanders                                a.sanders@mcc.ac.uk
> COPAC: A public bibliographic database from MIMAS, funded by JISC
>              http://copac.ac.uk/ - copac@mimas.ac.uk
>

Received on Tuesday, 26 February 2002 04:57:04 UTC