Kenneth Whistler wrote,
> The interlinear annotation characters fall in a gray zone, since
> they are not noncharacters, but by rights ought to have been.
> Since they are standard characters though, the standard has to
> provide some guidelines -- and it is simply safer, if you encounter
> and delete them, to also delete the annotation. You would be changing
> the interpretation of the text, but in a knowing, intended manner.
>
Should a character encoding standard ever encode a non-character?
Is there such a thing as a non-character with a specific semantic
meaning? Can't apps needing internal processing code points which
are only going to be deleted before export simply use the PUA?
If the PUA isn't acceptable, and the existing code points reserved
for undefined non-characters isn't large enough, wouldn't it be
better to assign a range of undefined non-characters in one of
the higher planes for these internal processing needs?
No application should delete anything without first asking the user's
permission.
Imagine spending considerable time and effort getting a text to
look just as desired only to have some application arbitrarily decide
to delete half of it without your permission or knowledge.
Best regards,
James Kass.
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