Hi John, I meant the character "<". As for notepad, what I should have either stated more completely or bit my tongue, is that where there is a standard in place (and where it is unambiguous) the mistakes of particular products shouldn't hold sway, unless they are tantamount to a de facto standard. I (personally) don't hold notepad in that class. In particular with respect to Michka's comment that parsers should upgrade to accommodate notepad's BOM, I rather thought notepad should be changed. But I certainly don't want to get into a debate on notepad's influence on the market, so let's pretend I bit my tongue in the last mail, and once again in this mail. ;-)
tex John Cowan wrote: > > Tex Texin scripsit: > > > I didn't think the XML standard allowed for utf-8 files to have a BOM. > > This capability was never actually excluded, and was added by erratum > (and force-majeure, when it became clear that BOMful UTF-8 was going to > start becoming common). XML files are intended to be plain text, and > if a large source of plain text insists on a BOM, so be it. > > > The standard is quite clear about requiring 0xFEFF for utf-16. > > I would have thought a proper parser would reject a non-utf-16 file > > beginning with something other than "<". > > If by "<" you mean the *character* "<", then yes. If you mean the *byte* > 0x3C, then no: well-formed XML files can begin with any of 0x00 (UTF-32), > 0x3C (ASCII-compatible), 0x4C (EBCDIC), 0xEF (UTF-8 with BOM), 0xFE (UTF-16 > in BE order), or 0xFF (UTF-16 in LE order). In principle they could begin with > some other byte: 0x2B in UTF-7, e.g. > > > (The fact that notepad puts it there should be irrelevant.) > > Actual practice is never quite irrelevant. > > -- > John Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.reutershealth.com > "Mr. Lane, if you ever wish anything that I can do, all you will have > to do will be to send me a telegram asking and it will be done." > "Mr. Hearst, if you ever get a telegram from me asking you to do > anything, you can put the telegram down as a forgery." -- ------------------------------------------------------------- Tex Texin cell: +1 781 789 1898 mailto:Tex@;XenCraft.com Xen Master http://www.i18nGuy.com XenCraft http://www.XenCraft.com Making e-Business Work Around the World -------------------------------------------------------------
