Internationalization Comments on Polyglot Markup: HTML-Compatible XHTML Documents

Date of latest comments: July 2010

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ID	Location	Subject	Comment	Owner	WG	Ed. / Subs.
1	3. Character Encoding	UTF-16 BOM is required	"When polyglot markup uses UTF-16, it should include the BOM indicating UTF-16LE or UTF-16BE." The RFC use of the word 'should' is incorrect. The XML spec requires the BOM for UTF-16 documents. http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/#charencoding	RI	Y	S
2	3. Character Encoding	In-document declarations always useful	"In addition, polyglot markup need not include the meta charset declaration, because the parser would have to read UTF-16 in order to parse it by definition." The i18n WG guidelines recommend, nevertheless, that you always include a visible encoding declaration in your document, since it helps developers, testers, or translation production managers who want to visually check the encoding of a document. So it's true to say that you strictly don't need it, but we would prefer that people do. Please could you reflect that in your document.	RI	Y	S
3	3. Character Encoding	BOM with utf-8 and/or utf-16	" Use UTF-8 or UTF-16 with the appropriate BOM. " This could be read "use utf-8 with the appropriate BOM or UTF-16 with the appropriate BOM", but a utf-8 bom (or signature) is not strictly necessary, and some would argue that it may cause problems, and it's use should be discouraged here.	RI	Y	E
4	3. Character Encoding	Omit the either/or list	" In short, for correct character encoding, polyglot markup must either: " The MUST is too strong. There is no problem with using more than one declaration, and in an earlier comment we said that we recommend that you have a readable declaration in the source in addition to a UTF8/16 encoding. I think it is better just to omit the list and it's lead-in paragraph "In short, for correct ...". The information is contained in the following paragraph that starts with "If polyglot markup uses an encoding other than..."	RI	Y	E
5	7. Attributes	Mention lang and xml:lang	No mention is made of the lang and xml:lang attributes. The document should say that both should be used when language attributes are used. It may also recommend the use of the language attributes in the html element to set the default language for the document, and mention that the meta Content-Language element has no usefulness at all in XML for setting the language of content.	RI	Y	E
6	6.2.3 Attribute values	Case requirements	" however, case requirements do not apply to non-ASCII letters such as Greek, Cyrillic, or non-ASCII Latin letters. " We are confused by this text. Scripts such as Greek, Cyrillic, and Armenian do have case distinctions, and those distinctions are significant in XML if you have attribute names or values in those scripts. But we are not clear when any characters from those scripts or non-ASCII Latin letters are used for attribute names or values in HTML. Please clarify for us what the intent is. (There is similar text in 6.2.2)	RI	Y	E
7	8. Named Entity References	Named entity references	" For example, polyglot markup uses   instead of  . " We would prefer your example to use the hexadecimal NER   rather than the decimal. See http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/REC-charmod-20050215/#C048	RI	Y	E
8	8. Named Entity References	ployglot	typo: ployglot -> polyglot	RI	Y	E

Location

Subject

Comment

Owner

Ed. /
Subs.

Mail

3. Character Encoding

UTF-16 BOM is required

"When polyglot markup uses UTF-16, it should include the BOM indicating UTF-16LE or UTF-16BE."

The RFC use of the word 'should' is incorrect. The XML spec requires the BOM for UTF-16 documents. http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/#charencoding

3. Character Encoding

In-document declarations always useful

"In addition, polyglot markup need not include the meta charset declaration, because the parser would have to read UTF-16 in order to parse it by definition."

The i18n WG guidelines recommend, nevertheless, that you always include a visible encoding declaration in your document, since it helps developers, testers, or translation production managers who want to visually check the encoding of a document. So it's true to say that you strictly don't need it, but we would prefer that people do. Please could you reflect that in your document.

3. Character Encoding

BOM with utf-8 and/or utf-16

" Use UTF-8 or UTF-16 with the appropriate BOM. "

This could be read "use utf-8 with the appropriate BOM or UTF-16 with the appropriate BOM", but a utf-8 bom (or signature) is not strictly necessary, and some would argue that it may cause problems, and it's use should be discouraged here.

3. Character Encoding

Omit the either/or list

" In short, for correct character encoding, polyglot markup must either: "

The MUST is too strong. There is no problem with using more than one declaration, and in an earlier comment we said that we recommend that you have a readable declaration in the source in addition to a UTF8/16 encoding.

I think it is better just to omit the list and it's lead-in paragraph "In short, for correct ...".

The information is contained in the following paragraph that starts with "If polyglot markup uses an encoding other than..."

7. Attributes

Mention lang and xml:lang

No mention is made of the lang and xml:lang attributes. The document should say that both should be used when language attributes are used.

It may also recommend the use of the language attributes in the html element to set the default language for the document, and mention that the meta Content-Language element has no usefulness at all in XML for setting the language of content.

6.2.3 Attribute values

Case requirements

" however, case requirements do not apply to non-ASCII letters such as Greek, Cyrillic, or non-ASCII Latin letters. "

We are confused by this text. Scripts such as Greek, Cyrillic, and Armenian do have case distinctions, and those distinctions are significant in XML if you have attribute names or values in those scripts. But we are not clear when any characters from those scripts or non-ASCII Latin letters are used for attribute names or values in HTML.

Please clarify for us what the intent is.

(There is similar text in 6.2.2)

8. Named Entity References

Named entity references

" For example, polyglot markup uses   instead of  . "

We would prefer your example to use the hexadecimal NER   rather than the decimal. See http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/REC-charmod-20050215/#C048

8. Named Entity References

ployglot

typo: ployglot -> polyglot

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