Re: Euro

From: Michael Everson (everson@indigo.ie)
Date: Mon Oct 20 1997 - 13:38:47 EDT


Ar 17:45 +0100 1997-10-20, scríobh Carrasco Benitez Manuel:
>
>There is some kind of confussion. In the book "The Unicode
>Standard, Version 2.0" is the following:
>
> 20A0 CE EURO-CURRENCY SIGN
>
>in the glyph CE the characters are interlaced and the E is lower.
>I do *not* want to add any character, just Unicode to indicate that
>the correct glyph is the "E" with the parallel middle "=" (have a look
>to http://europa.eu.int/euro.html).

The Unicode Technical Committee and ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2 and the European
Commission disagree with you. EURO-CURRENCY SIGN is ECU and EURO SIGN is
Euro.

>The EURO is the currency (*not* a basket) that will come into
>existance on the 1 January 1999 (i.e., it does *not* exist today). The
>ECU will be change one to one with the EURO and the ECU will disappear.
>They will be no co-habitacion ECU/EURO. But there will be a
>co-habitacion of the EURO with some national currencies that will
>disappear at a latter date.

They are different currencies. Implementors may have used U+20A0 for ECU,
then their data will be compromised if we reuse that position for a
different currency.

>The official line is in the URL above.

The Commission supports U+20AC, whatever is written down at that site.

>>Your proposal to modify ASCII is not acceptable to anyone.
>
>Formally and following Larry posting, I propose *defining a new*
>character set. Not *re-defining* ASCII. User will chose whatever
>character set they wish. I assume that the one that need the EURO in 7
>and 8 bits will choose the new one. I belive this is the easiest and
>cheapest way to do it.

If the Commission supports a 7-bit registration in ISO 2375, it would be
quite simple to forward them such a registration. Kenneth Thompson in
DGIII/B is the contact person we have with the Commission on these issues.

>>Your proposal to replace the VERTICAL BAR in Latin 1 will have no
>>support from anyone anywhere, I think. However, a new part of 8859
>>has been proposed in SC2/WG3 which will contain the EURO SIGN in either
>>the position of the PLUS-MINUS sign or the CURRENCY SIGN (it seems to be
>>controversial and hopefully will be resolved by the current ballot
>>on the CD.
>
>This not solve the 7 bits problem.

7-bit environments do not use 8859. You will have to have a mapping table
to Latin 0, just as you will have to have a mapping table for 10646.

>>I forgot to mention that the TC304 Euro Workshop did agree that an HTML
>>entity would be useful, but thought that it might be nice if it were
>>&EUR; instead of € as this is shorter and mnemonic to the 3-letter
>>currency code.
>
>I do not mind one way or another. I take note and I if there is no
>major negative feedback, I will change the document accordingly.

The feedback has been that € is best.

--
Michael Everson, Everson Gunn Teoranta
15 Port Chaeimhghein Íochtarach; Baile Átha Cliath 2; Éire (Ireland)
Gutháin:  +353 1 478-2597, +353 1 283-9396
http://www.indigo.ie/egt
27 Páirc an Fhéithlinn; Baile an Bhóthair; Co. Átha Cliath; Éire



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