Specifications

• How can I find out whether a particular issue is covered by a specification published by the Consortium. And where do I look it up?
• Are all of these normative?

Q: How can I find out whether a particular issue is covered by a specification published by the Consortium. And where do I look it up?

A. The Unicode Standard and related standards contain a number of specifications or guidelines for dealing with different programming tasks. Sometimes it's hard to find these as they are not all provided as specific, dedicated documents.

The following table lists subject areas for which the Unicode Consortium provides specifications, with a location and brief description what each specification covers.

General
Character Properties: common properties such as Name, Alphabetic, Letter, White-Space, General Category, Default-Ignorable, plus those used in other specifications	Ch 4
Character Properties for CJK Ideographs: property information specific to CJK ideographs and character properties	UAX 38
Unicode Character Database: general documentation about the UCD	UAX 44
UCD in XML: description of the XML representation of the UCD	UAX 42
Case Operations: conversion/detection of Upper/Lower/Titlecase, case folding, case matching. See also 4.2 Case.	§ 3.13
Characters with Unusual Properties: characters that implementers need to pay special attention to	§ 4.12
Use of Characters in Markup Contexts: guidelines for XML and other markup languages	UTR 20
Script Names: usage model for determining text runs in a given script	UAX 24
Use of Characters in Mathematical Contexts: guidelines for mathematical usage	UTR 25
Unicode Named Character Sequences: specifies the syntax for named character sequences	UAX 34
Encodings
Unicode Encoding Forms: UTF-8, UTF-16, UTF-32 conversion and validation	§ 3.9
Unicode Encoding Schemes: UTF-8, UTF-16 (BE/LE), UTF-32 (BE/LE) conversion and validation	§ 3.10
Binary Order: UTF-8 order vs. UTF-16 order	§ 5.17
Character Mapping Markup Language: mapping Unicode to and from legacy code pages	UTS 22
A Standard Compression Scheme for Unicode: how to compress Unicode to about the same size as legacy	UTS 6
UTF-EBCDIC: encapsulating Unicode on EBCDIC systems	UTR 16
Compatibility Encoding Scheme for UTF-16: 8-Bit (CESU-8): a compatibility 8-bit encoding scheme	UTR 26
Ideographic Variation Database: repository of variation sequences for specified collections of Han glyphs	UTS 37
Comparison (Normalization, Collation)
Canonical Equivalence: when character sequences are equivalent; canonical ordering	§ 3.11
Unicode Normalization Forms: how to normalize text for comparison	UAX 15, § 3.11
Unicode Collation Algorithm: the default mechanism for comparing, searching, and matching Unicode text	UTS 10
Parsing
Hangul Syllables: boundaries, parsing, (de/)composition, names	§ 3.12
Decimal Numbers: conversion and validation	§ 5.5
Unicode Regular Expression Guidelines: the features required in supporting regular expressions with Unicode	UTS 18
Identifier and Pattern Syntax: how to parse identifiers	UAX 31
Language Information in Plain Text, also 16.9 Deprecrated Tag Characters	§ 5.10
Variation Selectors: usage, validation	§ 16.4
Ideographic Description Sequences: use, validation	§ 12.2
Segmentation
Newline Guidelines: how to handle newline characters	§ 5.8
Line Breaking Algorithm: the default way to determine where to linewrap	UAX 14
Text Segmentation: the default way to break text into user characters, words, and sentences	UAX 29
Rendering
The Bidirectional Algorithm: required for display of Arabic and Hebrew text	UAX 9
East Asian Width: the default determination of character width in East Asian contexts	UAX 11
Minimal shaping requirements for Arabic, Devanagari, Tamil, etc.	Ch 8-10
Locale Data
Locale Data Mark-up Language (LDML): used for Interchange of locale data used for internationalization	UTS 35
Common Locale Data Repository (CLDR): a repository of LDML data for hundreds of locales	CLDR
Identifiers and Security
Identifier and Pattern Syntax: security issues for identifiers	UAX 31
Unicode Security Considerations: guidelines for recognizing Unicode security problems and dealing with them	UTR 36
Unicode Security Mechanisms: useful tools for detecting spoofs	UTS 39
Unicode IDNA Compatibility Processing: mapping for IDNA2008, and compatibility processing for IDNA2003	UTS 46

Q. Are all of these normative?

A. No. Some are normative and others are informative. For sections of The Unicode Standard, the material in Chapter 3, Conformance, and most of Chapter 4, Character Properties, are normative, while material in other sections is generally informative. The Unicode Standard Annexes (UAX) are formally a part of the Unicode Standard, and most of the material in them is normative, unless otherwise indicated in the annex itself. For Unicode Technical Standards (UTS), the specifications are normative parts of those independent standards. Unicode Technical Reports (UTR) contain informative material. For more information see About Unicode Technical Reports.

---