Network Working Group C. Newman
Internet-Draft Sun Microsystems
Expires: April 1, 2005 M. Duerst
W3C/Keio University
October 2004
Internet Application Protocol Collation Registry (DRAFT!!!)
draft-newman-i18n-comparator-04.txt
Status of this Memo
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Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2004).
Abstract
Many Internet application protocols include string-based lookup,
searching, or sorting operations. However the problem space for
searching and sorting international strings is large, not fully
explored, and is outside the area of expertise for the Internet
Engineering Task Force (IETF). Rather than attempt to solve such a
large problem, this specification creates an abstraction framework so
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that application protocols can precisely identify a comparison
function and the repertoire of comparison functions can be extended
in the future.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.1 Structure of this Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.2 Conventions Used in this Document . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2. Collation Definition and Purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1 Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2 Purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.3 Sort Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3. Collation Name Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.1 Basic Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.2 Wildcards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.3 Ordering Direction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.4 URIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.5 Naming Guidelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4. Collation Specification Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.1 Operations Supported . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.1.1 Equality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.2 Substring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.3 Ordering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.4 Internal Canonicalization Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.5 Use of Lookup Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.6 Treatement of NULL Strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.7 Multi-Value Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
5. Application Protocol Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
5.1 Character Encoding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.2 Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.3 Wildcards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.4 Canonicalization Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
5.5 Disconnected Clients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
5.6 Error Codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
5.7 Octet Collation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
6. Use by ACAP and Sieve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
7. Collation Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
7.1 Collation Registration Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
7.2 Collation Registration Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
7.2.1 Registration Template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
7.2.2 The collation Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
7.2.3 The name Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
7.2.4 The title Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
7.2.5 The functions Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
7.2.6 The specification Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
7.2.7 The submitter Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
7.2.8 The owner Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
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7.2.9 The version Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
7.2.10 The UnicodeVersion Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
7.2.11 The UCAVersion Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
7.2.12 The UCAMatchLevel Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
7.3 DTD for Collation Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
7.4 Structure of Collation Registry . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
7.5 Example Initial Registry Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
8. Guidelines for Expert Reviewer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
9. Initial Collations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
9.1 ASCII Numeric Collation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
9.1.1 ASCII Numeric Collation Description . . . . . . . . . 18
9.1.2 ASCII Numeric Collation Registration . . . . . . . . . 19
9.2 ASCII Casemap Collation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
9.2.1 ASCII Casemap Collation Description . . . . . . . . . 19
9.2.2 Legacy English Casemap Collation Registration . . . . 20
9.2.3 English Casemap Collation Registration . . . . . . . . 20
9.3 Nameprep Collation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
9.3.1 Nameprep Collation Description . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
9.3.2 Nameprep Collation Registration . . . . . . . . . . . 21
9.4 Basic Collation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
9.4.1 Basic Collation Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
9.4.2 Basic Collation Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
9.4.3 Basic Accent Sensitive Match Collation Registration . 24
9.4.4 Basic Case Sensitive Match Collation Registration . . 25
9.5 Octet Collation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
9.5.1 Octet Collation Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
9.5.2 Octet Collation Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
10. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
11. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
12. Open Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
13. Change Log . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
13.1 Changes From -02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
13.2 Changes From -01 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
13.3 Changes From -00 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
14. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
14.1 Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
14.2 Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . 30
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1. Introduction
The ACAP [11] specification introduced the concept of a comparator
(which we call collation in this document), but failed to create an
IANA registry. With the introduction of stringprep [6] and the
Unicode Collation Algorithm [8], it is now time to create that
registry and populate it with some initial values appropriate for an
international community. This specification replaces and generalizes
the definition of a comparator in ACAP and creates a collation
registry.
1.1 Structure of this Document
@@@@ to be completed
1.2 Conventions Used in this Document
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", and "MAY"
in this document are to be interpreted as defined in "Key words for
use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels" [1].
The attribute syntax specifications use the Augmented Backus-Naur
Form (ABNF) [2] notation including the core rules defined in Appendix
A. This also inherits ABNF rules from Language Tags [5].
The term 'protocol' is used in this memo in a very generic sense, and
includes things such as query languages.
2. Collation Definition and Purpose
2.1 Definition
A collation is a named function which takes two arbitrary length
character strings (with the exception of the i;octet (Section 9.5)
collation) as input and can be used to perform one or more of three
basic comparison operations: equality test, substring match, and
ordering test.
2.2 Purpose
Collations provide a multi-protocol abstraction layer for comparison
functions so the details of a particular comparison operation can be
specified by someone with appropriate expertise independent of the
application protocol that consumes that collation. This is similar
to the way a charset [14] separates the details of octet to character
mapping from a protocol specification such as MIME [9] or the way
SASL [10] separates the details of an authentication mechanism from a
protocol specification such as ACAP [11].
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Here a small diagram to help illustrate the value of this abstraction
layer:
+-------------------+ +-----------------+
| IMAP i18n SEARCH |--+ | Basic |
+-------------------+ | +--| Collation Spec |
| | +-----------------+
+-------------------+ | +-------------+ | +-----------------+
| ACAP i18n SEARCH |--+--| Collation |--+--| A stringprep |
+-------------------+ | | Registry | | | Collation Spec |
| +-------------+ | +-----------------+
+-------------------+ | | +-----------------+
| ...other protocol |--+ | | locale-specific |
+-------------------+ +--| Collation Spec |
+-----------------+
Thus IMAP, ACAP and future application protocols with international
search capability simply specify how to interface to the collation
registry instead of each protocol specification having to specify all
the collations it supports.
2.3 Sort Keys
One component of a collation is a canonicalization function which can
be pre-applied to single strings and may enhance the performance of
subsequent comparison operations. Normally, this is an
implementation detail of collations, but at times it may be useful
for an application protocol to expose collation canonicalization over
protocol. Collation canonicalization can range from an identity
mapping (e.g., the i;octet collation Section 9.5) to a mapping which
makes the string unreadable to a human (e.g., the basic collation).
3. Collation Name Syntax
3.1 Basic Syntax
The collation name itself is a single US-ASCII string beginning with
a letter and made up of letters, digits, or one of the following 4
symbols: "-", ";", "=" or ".". The name MUST NOT be longer than 254
characters.
collation-char = ALPHA / DIGIT / "-" / ";" / "=" / "."
collation-name = ALPHA *253collation-char
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3.2 Wildcards
The string a client uses to select a collation MAY contain a wildcard
("*") character which matches zero or more collation-chars. Wildcard
characters MUST NOT be adjacent. Clients which support disconnected
operation SHOULD NOT use wildcards to select a collation, but clients
which provide collation operations only when connected to the server
MAY use wildcards. If the wildcard string matches multiple
collations, the server SHOULD select the collation with the broadest
scope (preferably international scope), the most recent table
versions and the greatest number of supported operations. A single
wildcard character ("*") refers to the application protocol collation
behavior that would occur if no explicit negotiation were used.
collation-wild = ("*" / (ALPHA ["*"])) *(collation-char ["*"])
; MUST NOT exceed 255 characters total
3.3 Ordering Direction
When used as a protocol element for ordering, the collation name MAY
be prefixed by either "+" or "-" to explicitly specify an ordering
direction. As mentioned previously, "+" has no effect on the
ordering function, while "-" negates the result of the ordering
function. In general, collation-order is used when a client requests
a collation, and collation-sel is used with the server informs the
client of the selected collation.
collation-sel = ["+" / "-"] collation-name
collation-order = ["+" / "-"] collation-wild
3.4 URIs
Some protocols are designed to use URIs to refer to collations rather
than simple tokens. A special section of the IANA web page is
reserved for such usage. The "collation-uri" form is used to refer
to a specific IANA registry entry for a specific named collation (the
collation registration may not actually be present if it is
experimental). The "collation-auri" form is an abstract name for an
ordering, a comparator pattern or a vendor private comparator.
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collation-uri = "http://www.iana.org/assignments/collation/"
collation-name ".xml"
collation-auri = ( "http://www.iana.org/assignments/collation/"
collation-order [".xml"]) / other-uri
other-uri = absoluteURI
; excluding the IANA collation namespace.
3.5 Naming Guidelines
While this specification makes no absolute requirements on the
structure of collation names, naming consistency is important, so the
following initial guidelines are provided.
Collation names with an international audience typically begin with
"i;". Collation names intended for a particular language or locale
typically begin with a language tag [5] followed by a ";". After the
first ";" is normally the name of the general collation algorithm
followed by a series of algorithm modifications separated by the ";"
delimiter. Parameterized modifications will use "=" to delimit the
parameter from the value. The version numbers of any lookup tables
used by the algorithm SHOULD be present as parameterized
modifications.
Collation names of the form *;vnd-domain.com;* are reserved for
vendor-specific collations created by the owner of the domain name
following the "vnd-" prefix. Registration of such collations (or the
name space as a whole) with intended use of "Vendor" is encouraged
when a public specification or open-source implementation is
available, but is not required.
4. Collation Specification Requirements
4.1 Operations Supported
A collation specification MUST state which of the three basic
functions are supported (equality, substring, ordering) and how to
perform each of the supported functions on any two input character
strings including empty strings (with the exception of the i;octet
(Section 9.5) collation). Collations must be deterministic,
i.e.given a collation with a specific name, and any two fixed input
strings, the result MUST be the same for the same operation.
Collations MUST be transitive.
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4.1.1 Equality
The equality function always returns "match" or "no-match" when
supplied valid input and MAY return "error" if the input strings are
not valid character strings or violate other collation constraints.
4.2 Substring
The substring matching function determines if the first string is a
substring of the second string. A collation which supports substring
matching will automatically support the two special cases of
substring matching: prefix and suffix matching if those special cases
are supported by the application protocol. It returns "match" or
"no-match" when supplied valid input and returns "error" when
supplied invalid input.
Application protocols MAY return position information for substring
matches. If this is done, the position information MUST include both
the starting offset and the ending offset in the string. This is
important because more sophisticated collations can match strings of
unequal length (for example, a pre-composed accented character will
match a decomposed accented character).
4.3 Ordering
The ordering function determines how two character strings are
ordered. It returns "-1" if the first string is listed before the
second string according to the collation, "+1" if the second string
is listed before the first string, and "0" if the two strings are
equal. If the order of the two strings is reversed, the result of
the ordering function of the collation MUST be reversed, i.e.
results which would be "+1" are instead "-1" and results which would
be "-1" are instead "+1", while results which would be "0" stay "0".
In general, collations SHOULD NOT return "0" unless the two character
sequences are identical.
Since ordering is normally used to sort a list of items, "error" is
not a useful return value from the ordering function. Strings with
errors that prevent the sorting algorithm from functioning correctly
should sort to the end of the list. Thus if the first string is
invalid while the second string is valid, the result will be "+1".
If the second string is invalid while the first string is valid, the
result will be "-1". If both strings are invalid, the result SHOULD
match the result from the "i;octet" collation.
When the collation is used with a "+" prefix, the behavior is the
same as when used with no prefix. When the collation is used with a
"-" prefix, the result of the ordering function of the collation MUST
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be reversed.
4.4 Internal Canonicalization Algorithm
A collation specification MUST describe the internal canonicalization
algorithm. This algorithm can be applied to individual strings and
the result strings can be stored to potentially optimize future
comparison operations. A collation MAY specify that the
canonicalization algorithm is the identity function. The output of
the canonicalization algorithm MAY have no meaning to a human.
4.5 Use of Lookup Tables
Collations which use more than one customizable lookup table in a
documented format MUST assign numbers to the tables they use. This
permits an application protocol command to access the tables used by
a server collation.
4.6 Treatement of NULL Strings
Unless otherwise specified by the collation or application protocol,
a NULL string (as opposed to an empty string) is equal only to
another NULL string, a NULL string is not a substring of any other
string, and a NULL string sorts to a position after all non-NULL
strings, but before strings which generate errors.
4.7 Multi-Value Attributes
Some application protocols will permit the use of multi-value
attributes with a collation. This paragraph describes the rules that
apply unless otherwise specified by the collation or application
protocol. In the case of the equality and substring operation, the
operations are applied over each pair of single values from the two
inputs. If any combination produces an error, the result is an
error. Otherwise, if any combination produces a "match", the result
is a match. Otherwise the result is "no-match". For the ordering
function, the smallest ordinal character string from the first set of
values is compared to the smallest ordinal character string from the
second set of values.
5. Application Protocol Requirements
This section describes the requirements and issues that an
application protocol which offers searching, substring matching and/
or sorting and permits the use of characters outside the US-ASCII
charset needs to consider.
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5.1 Character Encoding
The protocol specification has to make sure that it is clear on which
characters (rather than just octets) the collations are used. This
can be done by specifying the protocol itself in terms of characters
(e.g. in the case of a query language), by specifying a single
character encoding for the protocol (e.g. UTF-8 [3]), or by
carefully describing the relevant issues of character encoding
labeling and conversion. In the later case, details to consider
include how to handle unknown charsets, any charsets which are
mandatory-to-implement, any issues with byte-order that might apply,
and any transfer encodings which need to be supported.
5.2 Operations
The protocol must specify which of the operations defined in this
specification (equality matching, substring matching and ordering)
can be invoked in the protocol, and how they are invoked. There may
be more than one way to invoke an operation.
The protocol MUST provide a mechanism for the client to select the
collation to use with equality matching, substring matching and
ordering.
If the protocol provides positional information for the results of a
substring match, that positional information MUST fully specify the
substring in the result that matches independent of the length of the
search string. For example, returning both the starting and ending
offset of the match would suffice, as would the starting offset and a
length. Returning just the starting offset is not acceptable. This
rule is necessary because advanced collations can treat strings of
different lengths as equal (for example, pre-composed and decomposed
accented characters).
5.3 Wildcards
The protocol MUST specify whether it allows the use of wildcards in
collation identifiers or not. If the protocol allows wildcards,
then:
The protocol MUST specify how comparisons behave in the absence of
explicit collation negotiation or when a collation of "*" is
requested. The protocol MAY specify that the default collation
used in such circumstances is sensitive to server configuration.
The protocol SHOULD provide a way to list available collations
matching a given wildcard pattern or patterns.
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5.4 Canonicalization Function
If the protocol provides a canonicalization function for strings,
then use of collations MAY be appropriate for that function. [Need
to describe how that would be done.]
5.5 Disconnected Clients
If the protocol supports disconnected clients, then a mechanism for
the client to precisely replicate the server's collation algorithm is
likely desirable. Thus the protocol MAY wish to provide a command to
fetch lookup tables used by charset conversions and collations.
5.6 Error Codes
The protocol specification should consider assigning protocol error
codes for the following circumstances:
o The client requests the use of a collation by name or pattern, but
no implemented collation matches that pattern.
o The client attempts to use a collation for a function that is not
supported by that collation. For example, attempting to use the
"i;ascii-numeric" collation for a substring matching function.
o The client uses an equality or substring matching collation and
the result is an error. It may be appropriate to distinguish
between the two input strings, particularly when one is supplied
by the client and one is stored by the server. It might also be
appropriate to distinguish the specific case of an invalid UTF-8
string.
5.7 Octet Collation
If the protocol permits the use of the i;octet (Section 9.5)
collation, it has to say so. The octet collation SHOULD NOT be used
unless the protocol uses UTF-8 as its single character encoding.
If the protocol permits the use of collations with data structures
beyond those described in this specification ([is the following a
list of described data structures, or of undescribed data
structures???] octet strings, NULL string, array of octet strings),
the protocol MUST describe the default behavior for a collation with
that data structure.
6. Use by ACAP and Sieve
Both ACAP [11] and Sieve [15] are standards track specifications
which used collations prior to the creation of this specification and
registry. Those standards do not meet all the application protocol
requirements described in Section 5. For backwards compatibility,
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those protocols use the "i;ascii-casemap" instead of
"en;ascii-casemap". [have to check whether the following is true:]
These protocols allow the use of the i;octet (Section 9.5) collation
working directly on UTF-8 data as used in these protocols.
7. Collation Registration
7.1 Collation Registration Procedure
IANA will create a mailing list collation@iana.org which can be used
for public discussion of collation proposals prior to registration.
Use of the mailing list is encouraged but not required. The actual
registration procedure will not begin until the completed
registration template is sent to iana@iana.org. The IESG will
appoint a designated expert who will monitor the collation@iana.org
mailing list and review registrations forwarded from IANA. The
designated expert is expected to tell IANA and the submitter of the
registration within two weeks whether the registration is approved,
approved with minor changes, or rejected with cause. When a
registration is rejected with cause, it can be re-submitted if the
concerns listed in the cause are addressed. Decisions made by the
designated expert can be appealed to the IESG and subsequently follow
the normal appeals procedure for IESG decisions.
Collation registrations in a standards track, BCP or IESG-approved
experimental RFC are owned by the IETF, and changes to the
registration follow normal procedures for updating such documents.
Collation registrations in other RFCs are owned by the RFC author(s).
Other collation registrations are owned by the individual(s) listed
in the contact field of the registration and IANA will preserve this
information. Changes to a registration MUST be approved by the
owner. In the event the owner cannot be contacted for a period of
one month and a change is deemed necessary, the IESG MAY re-assign
ownership to an appropriate party.
7.2 Collation Registration Format
Registration of a collation is done by sending a well-formed XML
document that validates with collationreg.dtd (Section 7.3).
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7.2.1 Registration Template
Here is a template for the registration:
collation name
technical title for collation
equality order substring
specification reference
email address of owner or IETF
email address of submitter
1
3.2
3.1.1
7.2.2 The collation Element
The root of the registration document MUST be a element.
The collation element contains the other elements in the
registration, which are described in the following sub-subsections,
in the order given here.
The element MAY include an "rfc=" attribute if the
specification is in an RFC. The "rfc=" attribute gives only the
number of the RFC, without any prefix, such as "RFC", or suffix, such
as ".txt".
The element MUST include a "scope=" attribute, which
MUST have one of the values "i18n", "local" or "other".
The element MUST include an "intendedUse=" attribute,
which must have one fo the values "common", "limited", "vendor", or
"deprecated". Collation specifications intended for "common" use are
expected to reference standards from standards bodies with
significant experience dealing with the details of international
character sets.
Be aware that future revisions of this specification may add
additional function types, as well as additional XML attributes and
values. Any system which automatically parses these XML documents
MUST take this into account to preserve future compatibility. A DTD
for the current definition of the collation registration template is
given in Section 7.3
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7.2.3 The name Element
The element gives the precise name of the comparator. The
element is mandatory.
7.2.4 The title Element
The element give the title of the comparator. The
element is mandatory.
7.2.5 The functions Element
The element lists which of the three functions the
comparator provides. The element is mandatory.
7.2.6 The specification Element
The element describes where to find the
specification. The element is mandatory. It MAY
have a URI attribute. [check that the following is really true; it
reflects what is currently in the DTD; also, say what it means/in
what cases it should be used] There may be more than one
elements.
7.2.7 The submitter Element
The element provides an RFC 2822 email address for the
person who submitted the registration. It is optional if the
element contains an email address. [check that the following is
really true; it reflects what is currently in the DTD; also, say what
it means/in what cases it should be used] There may be more than one
elements.
7.2.8 The owner Element
The element contains either the four letters "IETF" or an
email address of the owner of the registration. The element
is mandatory. [check that the following is really true; it reflects
what is currently in the DTD; also, say what it means/in what cases
it should be used] There may be more than one elements.
7.2.9 The version Element
The element is included when the registration is likely to
be revised or has been revised in such a way that the results change
for certain input strings. The element is optional.
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7.2.10 The UnicodeVersion Element
The element indicates the version number of the
UnicodeData file on which the collation is based. The
element is optional.
7.2.11 The UCAVersion Element
The element specifics the version of the Unicode
Collation Algorithm on which the collation is based. The
element is optional.
7.2.12 The UCAMatchLevel Element
The element specifies the number of Unicode Collation
Algorithm sort key levels used for the equality and substring
operations. The element is optional.
7.3 DTD for Collation Registration
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7.4 Structure of Collation Registry
Once the registration is approved, IANA will store each XML
registration document in a URL of the form
http://www.iana.org/assignments/collation/collation-name.xml where
collation-name is the contents of the name element in the
registration. Both the submitter and the designated expert is
responsible for verifying that the XML is well-formed and complies
with the DTD. In the future, it is hoped IANA will take over XML
verification responsibility from the designated expert.
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IANA will also maintain a text summary of the registry under the name
http://www.iana.org/assignments/collation/summary.txt. This summary
is divided into four sections. The first section is for collations
intended for common use. This section is intended for collation
registrations published in IESG approved RFCs or for locally scoped
collations from the primary standards body for that locale. The
designated expert is encouraged to reject collation registrations
with an intended use of "common" if the expert believes it should be
"limited", as it is desirable to keep the number of "common"
registrations small and high quality. The second section is reserved
for limited use collations. The third section is reserved for
registered vendor specific collations. The final section is reserved
for deprecated collations.
7.5 Example Initial Registry Summary
The following is an example of how IANA might structure the initial
registry summary.txt file:
Collation Functions Scope Reference
--------- --------- ----- ---------
Common Use Collations:
i;nameprep;v=1;uv=3.2 e, o, s i18n [RFC XXXX]
i;basic;uca=3.1.1;uv=3.2 e, o, s i18n [RFC XXXX]
i;basic;uca=3.1.1;uv=3.2;match=accent e, o, s i18n [RFC XXXX]
i;basic;uca=3.1.1;uv=3.2;match=case e, o, s i18n [RFC XXXX]
en;ascii-casemap e, o, s Local [RFC XXXX]
Limited Use Collations:
i;octet e, o, s Other [RFC XXXX]
i;ascii-numeric e, o Other [RFC XXXX]
Vendor Collations:
Deprecated Collations:
i;ascii-casemap e, o, s Local [RFC XXXX]
References
----------
[RFC XXXX] Newman, C., "Internet Application Protocol Collation
Registry", RFC XXXX, Sun Microsystems, October 2003.
8. Guidelines for Expert Reviewer
The expert reviewer appointed by the IESG has fairly broad latitude
for this registry. While a number of collations are expected
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(particularly customizations of the basic collation for localized
use), an explosion of collations (particularly common use collations)
is not desirable for widespread interoperability. However, it is
important for the expert reviewer to provide cause when rejecting a
registration, and when possible to describe corrective action to
permit the registration to proceed. The following table includes
some example reasons to reject a registration with cause:
o The registration is not a well-formed XML document that follows
the DTD.
o The registration has intended use of "common", but there is no
evidence the collation will be widely deployed so it should be
listed as "limited".
o The registration has intended use of "common", but is redundant
with the functionality of a previously registered "common"
collation.
o The collation name fails to precisely identify the version numbers
of relevant tables to use.
o The registration fails to meet one of the "MUST" requirements in
Section 4.
o The collation name fails to meet the syntax in Section 3.
o The collation specification referenced in the registration is
vague or has optional features without a clear behavior specified.
o The referenced specification does not adequately address security
considerations specific to that collation.
9. Initial Collations
This section describes an initial set of collations for the collation
registry.
9.1 ASCII Numeric Collation
9.1.1 ASCII Numeric Collation Description
The "i;ascii-numeric" collation is a simple collation intended for
use with arbitrary sized decimal numbers stored as octet strings of
US-ASCII digits (0x30 to 0x39). It supports equality and ordering,
but does not support the substring function. The algorithm is as
follows:
1. If neither string begins with a digit, return "error" if
matching, or the result of the "i;octet" collation for ordering.
2. If the first string begins with a digit and the second string
does not, return "error" if matching and "-1" for ordering.
3. If the second string begins with a digit and the first string
does not, return "error" if matching and "+1" for ordering.
4. Let "n" be the number of digits at the beginning of the first
string, and "m" be the number of digits at the beginning of the
second string.
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5. If n is equal to m, return the result of the "i;octet" collation.
6. If n is greater than m, prepend a string of "n - m" zeros to the
second string and return the result of the "i;octet" collation.
7. If m is greater than n, prepend a string of "m - n" zeros to the
first string and return the result of the "i;octet" collation.
The associated canonicalization algorithm is to truncate the input
string at the first non-digit character.
9.1.2 ASCII Numeric Collation Registration
i;ascii-numeric
ASCII Numeric
equality order
RFC XXXX
IETF
chris.newman@sun.com
9.2 ASCII Casemap Collation
9.2.1 ASCII Casemap Collation Description
The "en;ascii-casemap" collation is a simple collation intended for
use with English language text in pure US-ASCII. It provides
equality, substring and ordering functions. The algorithm first
applies a canonicalization algorithm to both input strings which
subtracts 32 (0x20) from all octet values between 97 (0x61) and 122
(0x7A) inclusive. The result of the collation is then the same as
the result of the "i;octet" collation for the canonicalized strings.
Care should be taken when using OS-supplied functions to implement
this collation as this is not locale sensitive, but functions such as
strcasecmp and toupper can be locale sensitive.
For historical reasons, in the context of ACAP and Sieve, the name
"i;ascii-casemap" is a synonym for this collation.
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9.2.2 Legacy English Casemap Collation Registration
i;ascii-casemap
Legacy English Casemap
equality order substring
RFC XXXX
IETF
chris.newman@sun.com
9.2.3 English Casemap Collation Registration
en;ascii-casemap
English Casemap
equality order substring
RFC XXXX
IETF
chris.newman@sun.com
9.3 Nameprep Collation
9.3.1 Nameprep Collation Description
The "i;nameprep;v=1;uv=3.2" collation is an implementation of the
nameprep [7] specification based on normalization tables from Unicode
version 3.2. This collation applies the nameprep canoncialization
function to both input strings and then returns the result of the
i;octet collation on the canonicalized strings. While this collation
offers all three functions, the ordering function it provides is
inadequate for use by the majority of the world.
Version number 1 is applied to nameprep as specified in RFC 3491. If
the nameprep specification is revised without any changes that would
produce different results when given the same pair of input octet
strings, then the version number will remain unchanged.
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The table numbers for tables used by nameprep are as follows:
+--------------+-----------------------+
| Table Number | Table Name |
+--------------+-----------------------+
| 1 | UnicodeData-3.2.0.txt |
| 2 | Table B.1 |
| 3 | Table B.2 |
| 4 | Table C.1.2 |
| 5 | Table C.2.2 |
| 6 | Table C.3 |
| 7 | Table C.4 |
| 8 | Table C.5 |
| 9 | Table C.6 |
| 10 | Table C.7 |
| 11 | Table C.8 |
| 12 | Table C.9 |
+--------------+-----------------------+
9.3.2 Nameprep Collation Registration
i;nameprep;v=1;uv=3.2
Nameprep
equality order substring
RFC XXXX
IETF
chris.newman@sun.com
1
3.2
9.4 Basic Collation
9.4.1 Basic Collation Description
The basic collation is intended to provide tolerable results for a
number of languages for all three functions (equality, substring and
ordering) so it is suitable as a mandatory-to-implement collation for
protocols which include ordering support. The ordering function of
the basic collation is the Unicode Collation Algorithm [8] version 9
(UCAv9).
The equality and substring functions are created as described in
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UCAv9 section 8. While that section is informative to UCAv9, it is
normative to this collation specification.
This collation is based on Unicode version 3.2, with the following
tables relevant:
1. For the normalization step,
is used. Column 5 is used to determine the canonical
decomposition, while column 3 contains the canonical combining
classes necessary to attain canonical order.
2. The table of characters which require a logical order exception
is a subset of the table in
and
is included here:
0E40..0E44 ; Logical_Order_Exception
# Lo [5] THAI CHARACTER SARA E..THAI CHARACTER SARA AI MAIMALAI
0EC0..0EC4 ; Logical_Order_Exception
# Lo [5] LAO VOWEL SIGN E..LAO VOWEL SIGN AI
# Total code points: 10
3. The table used to translate normalized code points to a sort key
is .
UCAv9 includes a number of configurable parameters and steps labelled
as potentially optional. The following list summarizes the defaults
used by this collation:
o The logical order exception step is mandatory by default to
support the largest number of languages.
o Steps 2.1.1 to 2.1.3 are mandatory as the repertoire of the basic
collation is intended to be large.
o The second level in the sort key is evaluated forwards by default.
o The variable weighting uses the "non-ignorable" option by default.
o The semi-stable option is not used by default.
o Support for exactly three levels of collation is the default
behavior.
o No preprocessing step is used by the basic collation prior to
applying the UCAv9 algorithm. Note that an application protocol
specification MAY require pre-processing prior to the use of any
collations.
o The equality and substring algorithms exclude differences at level
2 and 3 by default (thus it is case-insensitive and ignores
accentual distinctions.
o The equality and substring algorithms use the "Whole Characters
Only" feature described in UCAv9 section 8 by default.
The exact collation name with these defaults is
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"i;basic;uca=3.1.1;uv=3.2". When a specification states that the
basic collation is mandatory-to-implement, only this specific name is
mandatory-to-implement.
In order to allow modification of the optional behaviors, the
following ABNF is used for variations of the basic collation:
basic-collation = ("i" / Language-Tag) ";basic;uca=3.1.1;uv=3.2"
[";match=accent" / ";match=case"]
[";tailor=" 1*collation-char ]
If multiple modifiers appear, they MUST appear in the order described
above. The modifiers have the following meanings:
match=accent Both the first and second levels of the sort keys are
considered relevant to the equality and substring
operations (rather than the default of first level
only). This makes the matching functions sensitive to
accentual distinctions.
match=case The first three levels of sort keys are considered
relevant to the equality and substring operations.
This makes the matching functions sensitive to both
case and accentual distinctions.
The default weighting option is "non-ignorable". The "semi-stable"
sort key option is not used by default.
The canonicalization algorithm associated with this collation is the
output of step 3 of the UCAv9 algorithm (described in section 4.3 of
the UCA specification). This canonicalization is not suitable for
human consumption.
Finally, the UCAv9 algorithm permits the "allkeys" table to be
tailored to a language. People who make quality tailorings are
encouraged to register those tailorings using the collation registry.
Tailoring names beginning with "x" are reserved for experimental use,
are treated as "Limited use" and MUST NOT match wildcards if any
registered collation is available that does match.
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9.4.2 Basic Collation Registration
i;basic;uca=3.1.1;uv=3.2
Basic
equality order substring
RFC XXXX
IETF
chris.newman@sun.com
3.2
3.1.1
1
9.4.3 Basic Accent Sensitive Match Collation Registration
i;basic;uca=3.1.1;uv=3.2;match=accent
Basic Accent Sensitive Match
equality order substring
RFC XXXX
IETF
chris.newman@sun.com
3.2
3.1.1
2
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9.4.4 Basic Case Sensitive Match Collation Registration
i;basic;uca=3.1.1;uv=3.2;match=case
Basic Case Sensitive Match
equality order substring
RFC XXXX
IETF
chris.newman@sun.com
3.2
3.1.1
3
9.5 Octet Collation
9.5.1 Octet Collation Description
The "i;octet" collation is a simple and fast collation intended for
use on binary octet strings rather than on character data. It is the
only such collation; it is not possible to register additional
collations with this property. Protocols that want to make this
collation available have to do so by explicitly allowing it. If not
explicitly allowed, it MUST NOT be used. It never returns an "error"
result. It provides equality, substring and ordering functions.
The ordering algorithm is as follows:
1. If both strings are the empty string, return the result "0".
2. If the first string is empty and the second is not, return the
result "-1".
3. If the second string is empty and the first is not, return the
result "+1".
4. If both strings begin with the same octet value, remove the first
octet from both strings and repeat this algorithm from step 1.
5. If the unsigned value (0 to 255) of the first octet of the first
string is less than the unsigned value of the first octet of the
second string, then return "-1".
6. If this step is reached, return "+1".
This algorithm is roughly equivalent to the C library function memcmp
with appropriate length checks added.
The matching function returns "match" if the sorting algorithm would
return "0". Otherwise the matching function returns "no-match".
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The substring function returns "match" if the first string is the
empty string, or if there exists a substring of the second string of
length equal to the length of the first string which would result in
a "match" result from the equality function. Otherwise the substring
function returns "no-match".
The associated canonicalization algorithm is the identity function.
9.5.2 Octet Collation Registration
This collation is defined with intendedUse="limited" because it can
only be used by protocols that explicitly allow it.
i;octet
Octet
equality order substring
RFC XXXX
IETF
chris.newman@sun.com
10. IANA Considerations
Section 7 defines how to register collations with IANA. This section
should be carefully studied, and commented upon if necessary, by IANA
before approval of this document for publication as an RFC.Section 9
defines a list of predefined collations, which should be registered
when this document is approved and published as an RFC.
11. Security Considerations
Collations will normally be used with UTF-8 strings. Thus the
security considerations for UTF-8 [3] and stringprep [6] also apply
and are normative to this specification.
12. Open Issues
See http://www.w3.org/2004/08/ietf-collation.
13. Change Log
13.1 Changes From -02
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1. Changed from data being octet sequences (in UTF-8) to data being
character sequences (with octet collation as an exception).
2. Made XML format description much more structured.
3. Changed to , because this spelling is much
more common.
4. Defined 'protocol' to include query languages.
5. Reorganized document, in particular IANA considerations section
(which newly is just a list of pointers).
6. Added subsections, and a 'Structure of this Document' section.
7. Updated references.
8. Created a 'Change Log' chapter, with sections for each draft.
9. Reduced 'Open issues' section, open issues are now maintained at
http://www.w3.org/2004/08/ietf-collation.
13.2 Changes From -01
Add IANA comment to open issues. Otherwise this is just a re-publish
to keep the document alive.
13.3 Changes From -00
1. Replaced the term comparator with collation. While comparator is
somewhat more precise because these abstract functions are used
for matching as well as ordering, collation is the term used by
other parts of the industry. Thus I have changed the name to
collation for consistency.
2. Remove all modifiers to the basic collation except for the
customization and the match rules. The other behavior
modifications can be specified in a customization of the
collation.
3. Use ";" instead of "-" as delimiter between parameters to make
names more URL-ish.
4. Add URL form for comparator reference.
5. Switched registration template to use XML document.
6. Added a number of useful registration template elements related
to the Unicode Collation Algorithm.
7. Switched language from "custom" to "tailor" to match UCA language
for tailoring of the collation algorithm.
14. References
14.1 Normative References
[1] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement
Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[2] Crocker, D. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax
Specifications: ABNF", RFC 2234, November 1997.
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[3] Yergeau, F., "UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO 10646", STD
63, RFC 3629, November 2003.
[4] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R. and L. Masinter, "Uniform Resource
Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax",
draft-fielding-uri-rfc2396bis-07.txt (work in progress), April
2004.
[5] Alvestrand, H., "Tags for the Identification of Languages", BCP
47, RFC 3066, January 2001.
[6] Hoffman, P. and M. Blanchet, "Preparation of Internationalized
Strings ("stringprep")", RFC 3454, December 2002.
[7] Hoffman, P. and M. Blanchet, "Nameprep: A Stringprep Profile for
Internationalized Domain Names (IDN)", RFC 3491, March 2003.
[8] Davis, M. and K. Whistler, "Unicode Collation Algorithm version
9", July 2002,
.
14.2 Informative References
[9] Freed, N. and N. Borenstein, "Multipurpose Internet Mail
Extensions (MIME) Part One: Format of Internet Message Bodies",
RFC 2045, November 1996.
[10] Myers, J., "Simple Authentication and Security Layer (SASL)",
RFC 2222, October 1997.
[11] Newman, C. and J. Myers, "ACAP -- Application Configuration
Access Protocol", RFC 2244, November 1997.
[12] Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for Writing an IANA
Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26, RFC 2434, October
1998.
[13] Resnick, P., "Internet Message Format", RFC 2822, April 2001.
[14] Freed, N. and J. Postel, "IANA Charset Registration
Procedures", BCP 19, RFC 2978, October 2000.
[15] Showalter, T., "Sieve: A Mail Filtering Language", RFC 3028,
January 2001.
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Authors' Addresses
Chris Newman
Sun Microsystems
1050 Lakes Drive
West Covina, CA 91790
US
EMail: chris.newman@sun.com
Martin Duerst (Note: Please write "Duerst" with u-umlaut wherever possible, for example as "Dürst" in XML and HTML.)
W3C/Keio University
5322 Endo
Fujisawa, Kanagawa 252-8520
Japan
Phone: +81 466 49 1170
Fax: +81 466 49 1171
EMail: mailto:duerst@w3.org
URI: http://www.w3.org/People/D%C3%BCrst/
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