From: Misha Wolf <misha.wolf@reuters.com>
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 05:16:46 -0700 (PDT)
ISO 3166 is not the source of currency codes. ISO 4217 is. It is true
that most currency codes allocated by ISO 4217 have a ISO 3166 country code
as their first two characters. This is not, however, universally so.
Unless I missed some, all the exceptions to that rule (prior to the
registration of EUR) were of the form "Xab", where "a" is a letter
that is more or less mnemonic of the area using the currency, and "b"
is the first letter of the name of the currency (as usual).
Examples:
XEU ECU (E for European Community, U for Unit)
XAF Central African Franc (A for Africa, F for Franc)
As far as I am informed, the ISO 3166 standard specifically reserves
the codes beginning with X as a sort of private use area. (And IMO,
this shows admirable forethought on the part of the WG defining 3166).
ISO 4217 is thus not in conflict with ISO 3166, since the entities
denoted by X? codes are not registered in the latter.
In this system, the Euro might have been registered as XEE.
The registration of EUR, however, arrogates the registrable 3166 code
EU, and ignores the first-letter-of-currency-name guideline as well.
Which only goes to show that the Commision is about as powerful as
Bill Gates.
Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn@diku.dk> (Humour NOT marked)
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