From: Doug Ewell (dewell@adelphia.net)
Date: Mon Mar 17 2003 - 11:46:49 EST
Chris Jacobs <c dot t dot m dot jacobs at hccnet dot nl> wrote:
>>> Then on my system U+E000 in plaintext should indeed display an apple
>>> symbol and U+E100 a banana symbol.
>>> But if there are more fonts with an apple symbol U+E000 does not
>>> specify the font to use.
>>
>> This isn't conformant and won't work.
>
> Which rule in The Unicode Standard Version 3.0 exactly is this not
> conformant with?
I think Conformance Requirement C10, "Modification," applies to this
case. C10 states:
"A process shall make no change in a valid coded character
representation other than the possible replacement of character
sequences by their canonical-equivalent sequences, if that process
purports not to modify the interpretation of that coded character
representation."
If you are claiming to follow a PUA interpretation in which U+E000 is an
apple and U+E100 is a banana, then interpreting U+E100 as an apple is an
unadvertised modification -- unless you contend that APPLE and BANANA
are canonical equivalents!
Even if C10 doesn't apply, even if there is no conformance requirement
prohibiting this kind of offset-shifting scheme, what is the benefit?
As I said before, you have no way of knowing which users have installed
your chosen font at which offset (assuming they could even figure out
what they were supposed to do or what a PUA was). You might as well go
with custom ASCII-hacked fonts and leave Unicode out of this altogether;
at least your apple symbol will always appear at 0xE5 or whatever.
-Doug Ewell
Fullerton, California
http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/
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