Re: Charset labelling (Was: Comments on: "Character Set" Considered

Glenn Adams (glenn@stonehand.com)
Fri, 28 Apr 95 14:49:01 EDT

Date: Fri, 28 Apr 1995 13:38:39 -0400
From: Gavin Nicol <gtn@ebt.com>

> ... you need to use the code extension techniques already defined
> in ISO 8879:1986 Annex E.3 Device-Independent Code Extension and
> based on ISO 2022.

Most people acknowledge that this is somewhat difficult to use...

Let's be clear that it is ISO 2022 that is difficult to use and
support. [I personally know this quite well having implemented a
system that supported full 2022 based code switching some years ago.]

However, whether or not it is difficult, it *is* the only standard for
code switching. EUC, X (and DEC) Compound Text strings, etc., are all
based on 2022. Given that 2022 supports switching to 10646 and any
other arbitrary coding system, it is general purpose enough to handle
any code switching task.

All I'm saying is that if you really want to do code switching (and,
personally, I think that is a wrong choice) you should only be using 2022.

Glenn