Re: Arabic date format and Microsoft programs

On Sat, 15 Oct 2011 17:19:29 +0200 (CEST)
Andreas Prilop <prilop4321_at_trashmail.net> wrote:

> I return to
> http://www.unicode.org/mail-arch/unicode-ml/y2011-m10/att-0059/1999-12-31.html
>
> Microsoft programs (Internet Explorer, MS Word), display this as
> 31/12/1999
>
> Other programs (Firefox, Opera, OpenOffice) display this as
> 1999/12/31
>
> NB:
> I do not ask how to write unambiguously. (This can be done with
> <bdo dir=ltr>.) It bothers me that different programs display
> this file differently.

HTML 4.0 and 4.0.1 Section 8.2 Paragraph 3 Section 2 states, "If a
document does not contain a displayable right-to-left character, a
conforming user agent is not required to apply the [UNICODE]
bidirectional algorithm." The example file contains no right-to-left
characters, so application of the bidi algorithm is optional.

Now CSS does mandate the consistent application of the bidi algorithm
(CSS 2.1 Section 9.10, if not earlier), so there is not a lot more we
can say about this lack of standardisation.

Richard.
Received on Sun Oct 16 2011 - 16:53:09 CDT