Character encoding questions

[Eric Baatz - Sun Microsystems Labs BOS]

>  >Having something like
>  >a declaration that is transport or operating environment
>  >independent seems a lot simpler, reliable, and understandable.
>  >If the declaration is redundant, it is harmless.
>  
>  If they are in conflict, it can be harmful.

Quite true if a program that is confronted with the conflict
does something harmful.  I'm speculating that fewer harmful
results will occur in the real world if #1 below occurs
than if #2 occurs.

#1. A program trusts the XML information unless it results in
the XML document not looking like an XML document.  Then the
program can give up or try some environment-driven methods.

#2. A program keeps a lot of specialized information about
environments it might run in (lets assume that the program
is somewhat portable so the environments include as least
Windows, Apple, and some sort of Unix) and how an XML document
might reach it.  If the program has the right information
and correctly winds its way through it, then it gets a good XML
document.

I think that #2 is much harder to do than being told what to do
by the document.



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