> W3C specifies to use %-encoded UTF-8 for URLs.
I think that's an overstatement.
Neither the W3C nor the IETF make such a specification.
http://www.w3.org/TR/charmod/#sec-URIs
contains many ambiguities, conflicts with XML and HTTP,
and is not yet a recommendation.
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2141.html
only applies to URNs, not URLs.
http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/appendix/notes.html#h-B.2.1
only applies to user agents behavior when presented with illegal
href or name attribute values in an HTML document.
http://www.w3.org/International/O-URL-code.html
not a normative reference and conflicts with XML and HTTP.
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-masinter-url-i18n-07.txt
same problems as above, and not yet an RFC.
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2718.html
only applies to new URI schemes, not established ones.
I wrote a little about this topic at
http://skew.org/xml/misc/URI-i18n/
- Mike
____________________________________________________________________
Mike J. Brown, software engineer at My XML/XSL resources:
webb.net in Denver, Colorado, USA http://skew.org/xml/
