Mix encodings in a document?

[James Tauber]

-----Original Message-----
From: Deke Smith <deke at tallent.com>

>I think I know the answer I am going to get, but I'll ask anyway.
>
>Within a single XML document, is it possible to have the text encoding
>change from element to element?

The way you've phrased the question, the answer is yes, but given your
examples, I suspect you are really asking whether is it possible to have the
text encoding change WITHIN A SINGLE ENTITY, in which case the answer is no.

There is nothing to stop you having

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE PHRASES [
<!ENTITY phrase2 SYSTEM "phrase2.xml">
]>
<PHRASES>
<PHRASE encoding="ISO-8859-1" xml:lang="en">Hello!</PHRASE>
&phrase2;
</PHRASES>

where phrase2.xml is

<?xml encoding="X-EUC-TW"?>
<PHRASE xml:lang="zh-TW"><!--chinese language text
here--></PHRASE>

This is within the one document (but two entities).

Mind you, your example:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<PHRASES>
<PHRASE encoding="ISO-8859-1" xml:lang="en">Hello!</PHRASE>
<PHRASE encoding="X-EUC-TW" xml:lang="zh-TW"><!--chinese language text
here--></PHRASE>
</PHRASES>

won't cause any problems, simply because there is nothing special about the
attribute "encoding". Note that it's not valid but that isn't because of the
encoding attribute, it's simply because there isn't a DTD declaring the
elements and attributes used.

James
--
James Tauber / jtauber at jtauber.com      http://www.jtauber.com/
Lecturer and Associate Researcher
Electronic Commerce Network             ( http://www.xmlinfo.com/
Curtin Business School                  ( http://www.xmlsoftware.com/
Perth, Western Australia                ( http://www.schema.net/


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