Re: Naming of functional ASCII characters in Unicode

From: James E. Agenbroad (jage@loc.gov)
Date: Tue Jun 06 2000 - 15:15:25 EDT


On Tue, 6 Jun 2000, Asmus Freytag wrote:

> Instead of suggestions for renaming characters according to a particular
> understanding of their usaga (it may even be a better understanding than
> embodied in the original name), a more helpful thing would be for everybody
> to start using the *full* unicode names list, including all the aliases and
> explanatory information, as found on http://charts.unicode.org
>
> For example the ASCII portion is at http://charts.unicode.org/PDF/u0000.pdf
> A text only version of the information resides on the ftp site.
> ftp://www.unicode.org/UNIDATA/NamesList.txt.
>
> Or, you can refer to the nameslist and charts starting at page 335 in the
> Unicode Standard, Version 3.0, ISBN 0-201-61633-5.
>
> Within the bounds of practicality, Unicode will augment the information in
> the annotated nameslist to provide shorthand information on the identity
> and range of usage of a given Unicode character.
>
> Even the annotated nameslist cannot cover all aspects of a character's
> usage. More information on problematic characters, or overall script
> behavior, is found in chapters 6-13 of the book. This information is not
> available online.
>
> To cut down on the reliance on the 'frozen' official name of a character,
> it would be useful if those vendors providing character identification by
> name could support access to the aliases defined by Unicode as well.
>
> A./
>
                                                   Tuesday, June 6, 2000
The approach to naming taken for C0 and C1 control characters,
U+0000 to U+001F and U+007F to U+009F has considerable appeal. Their
name is just <control> with aliases from one ISO standard that applies
meanings to them. (Other ISO standards assign other meanings to some of them,
e.g., ISO 6630 makes 88 = non-sorting begin and 89 = non-sorting end,)
Then on page 29-30 I think 3.0 says they mean whatever the sender and
receiver agree that they mean. Presumably if both ends agree U+0088 and
U+0089 would have the ISO 6630 meanings given above.
     Regards,
          Jim Agenbroad ( jage@LOC.gov )
     The above are purely personal opinions, not necessarily the official
views of any government or any agency of any.
Phone: 202 707-9612; Fax: 202 707-0955; US mail: I.T.S. Dev.Gp.4, Library
of Congress, 101 Independence Ave. SE, Washington, D.C. 20540-9334 U.S.A.



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