Re: switching ISO 2022 <-> Unicode

From: Michael Kung (MKUNG@us.oracle.com)
Date: Mon Jan 20 1997 - 12:35:53 EST


Rick,
 
>I'm under the impression that Unicode's CNS coverage is already
>adequate for all but the most obscure situations.
 
It depends. The current CNS plane 4 (part) to plane 7 are missing from
Unicode. This prevents Taiwan government where those characters are used to
move to Unicode as the solution. The HongKong government has about 2800
characters excluding the ones in Extension A that are required for HongKong
government contract. Those 2800 are not in Unicode in any proposal yet.
 
If we look at the original extension A proposal, it was reduced significantly.
 And those are needed not for obscure situation. Therefore, it might be
adequate for most users and most vendors. But it is not adequate for those
users and vendors are in the above situation.
 
Regards,
 
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Michael Kung
40P-972 Phone: (415) 506-6954
Manager, Server Globalization Technology Fax: (415) 506-7225
Languages and Relational Technology Email: mkung@us.oracle.com
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


attached mail follows:


Werner LEMBERG wrote:

> ISO 2022 has a mechanism to change to other encoding schemes. It would be
> nice to have a certain control character in Unicode which do a similar
thing.
> Comments?

Actually, I think this is not such a good idea for Unicode, which was designed
precisely to AVOID such things. If you need to support ISO-2022, perhaps you
could just support it; and then invoke Unicode within it if you need to? It
think there is an ISO-2022 invocation sequence for Unicode...some standards
guru may know.

And the CNS issue is something that the CJK IRG is working on, certainly, and
eventually there will (likely) be a solution that satisfies the community
which needs the said CNS characters. I wouldn't look upon this as a permanent
disability of Unicode. If you have specific character requirements, you could
forward those. I'm under the impression that Unicode's CNS coverage is already
adequate for all but the most obscure situations.

        Rick



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