(in relevant part)
Other values for the charset parameter may be defined by the
transport mechanism (e.g., MIME and HTTP), but are not defined by
this specification. Since the SGML declaration for HTML (supplied
in Section 12.3) is only applicable to ISO-8859-1 and its subsets,
a charset parameter that specifies a different character set must
also imply a different SGML declaration. Therefore, user agents may
use the charset parameter value to select a different declaration,
even though the mechanism for doing so is not defined by this
specification. The intent, however, is that such a declaration be
as identical as possible to that of Section 12.3, the only
differences being those required to support the announced charset.
When the above conflicts with the SGML standard, the SGML standard
may be ignored. Note, however, that not all HTML applications are
capable of ignoring the SGML standard.
Thanks, Roy.
-- Terry Allen (terry@ora.com) O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. Editor, Digital Media Group 101 Morris St. Sebastopol, Calif., 95472 occasional column at: http://gnn.com/meta/imedia/webworks/allen/A Davenport Group sponsor. For information on the Davenport Group see ftp://ftp.ora.com/pub/davenport/README.html or http://www.ora.com/davenport/README.html