John> Actually, no. The definition of "abstract character" in
John> Unicode 2.0 (page 3-4) is the same as the definition of
John> "character" in ISO 10646. The term "character", on the other
John> hand, is not defined at all in the normative parts of the
John> Unicode Standard.
John> The glossary (page G-2) defines "character" in five different
John> ways, one of which is as a synonym for "abstract character".
John> The other definitions are: "the smallest component of written
John> language that has semantic value"; "a 16-bit unit of textual
John> information"; synonym for "code value"; synonym for "Han
John> ideograph".
John> There is, as far as I can tell, no single term used in the
John> Unicode Standard for what you are calling an "abstract
John> character" above. I would like there to be one, myself.
Here. I'll do it. Unify the definitions according to Unicode
principles to get "U+FFFF UNICODE CHARACTER." Then change the
definition of a character in the glossary to "See U+FFFF." :-)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
mleisher@crl.nmsu.edu
Mark Leisher "A designer knows he has achieved perfection
Computing Research Lab not when there is nothing left to add, but
New Mexico State University when there is nothing left to take away."
Box 30001, Dept. 3CRL -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Las Cruces, NM 88003
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Tue Jul 10 2001 - 17:20:37 EDT