Re: Fun with proof by analogy, was Re: Mojibake on my Web pages

From: jameskass@att.net
Date: Sat Sep 27 2003 - 03:12:43 EDT

  • Next message: Michael Everson: "Re: Fun with proof by analogy, was Re: Mojibake on my Web pages"

    .
    Peter Constable wrote,

    > Doug's server may be doing the wrong thing, but that isn't a
    > counterargument to the general principle of whether the browser should
    > believe what the server says or what the document says about the encoding.
    > That was the question to which I and, I think, Jon were responding.

    The specs list an order of priority in which character set information
    is sought.

    First, the browser checks the HTTP header, then the XML declaration
    (which is not relevant to HTML), then the HTML meta tag.

    Apparently, upon finding character set information, the operation
    stops, so if information is present in the HTTP header, the meta
    tag won't be consulted.

    This approach seems flawed -- illustrated by the problems caused
    by Adelphia's apparent incompetence in this regard.

    All of the data should be consulted and there should be some kind
    of protocol in place to handle conflicting character set info.

    In the event of a conflict between the HTTP header and the HTML meta
    tag, of course the browser should believe the HTML meta tag. After
    all, who knows better than the author the encoding used to construct
    the file? Where the server has performed a character set conversion
    upon request from a browser, then, as a part of the character set
    conversion process, the HTML meta tag needs to be re-written in case
    the page is archived by the visitor for later off-line viewing.

    If this were the case, we wouldn't be having this thread.

    Best regards,

    James Kass
    .

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