----- Original Message ----- From: Peter Kirk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 09:03:48 -0800 To: Doug Ewell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Detecting encoding in Plain text
On 13/01/2004 08:34, Doug Ewell wrote:
>Peter Kirk <peterkirk at qaya dot org> wrote:
>
> >
>>>If a certain Unicode plain text file uses ASCII punctuation OR spaces
>>>OR end-of-line characters, AND the file is not too short or has a
>>>very odd formatting, then the algorithm should work.
>>> >>>
>>True. But there may be certain languages (perhaps Thai?) for which all
>>of these circumstances regularly occur together. It would be very
>>inconvenient for users of these languages if programs regularly
>>attribute the wrong encoding to their text.
>> >>
>
>Whether this is specifically true for Thai or not -- and I doubt that
>the "short file or odd formatting" condition could ever be considered
>language-dependent -- I would say an otherwise-good heuristic that
>performs badly for Thai ought to have special cases built in for Thai,
>rather than being discarded.
>
>
> >
I may have confused you with what I wrote, but my "all of these circumstances" referred not to "the "short file or odd formatting" condition", but to Marco's "*all* these circumstances", which you snipped, which were originally:
>Some scripts include their own digits and punctuation; not all scripts use spaces; and controls are not necessarily used, if U+2028 LINE SEPARATOR is used for new lines. >
I agree that heuristics should be adjusted for Thai. But problems may arise if they have to be adjusted individually, and without regression errors, for all 6000+ world languages.
-- Peter Kirk [EMAIL PROTECTED] (personal) [EMAIL PROTECTED] (work) http://www.qaya.org/
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