RE: Converting between Shift-JIS and Unicode

From: Rick Cameron (Rick.Cameron@businessobjects.com)
Date: Thu Apr 01 2004 - 18:21:38 EST

  • Next message: John Jenkins: "Re: Converting between Shift-JIS and Unicode"

    Thanks for the quick reply, Rick. Any chance your answer could be added to
    the FAQ on the website?

    Cheers

    - rick

    -----Original Message-----
    From: unicode-bounce@unicode.org [mailto:unicode-bounce@unicode.org] On
    Behalf Of Rick McGowan
    Sent: April 1, 2004 15:01
    To: unicode@unicode.org
    Subject: Re: Converting between Shift-JIS and Unicode

    Rick Cameron asked...

    > It appears that Unihan.txt does not include mappings to Shift-JIS,

    Right. It includes JIS mappings (for the Han portions of JIS).

    > and that the only file on unicode.org that contains mappings between
    > Shift-JIS and Unicode is in the 'obsolete' section.

    Please read the caveats there before using those. The obsolete mappings are
    totally unsupported. Use at your own risk.

    > Did UTC decide it no longer wanted to provide an official mapping table?
    > If so, why?

    A long long time ago we decided to drop support for most mappings. There are
    many reasons, not least of which is that some of them are moving targets,
    and we don't have resources to support them. For "Shift JIS" there are many
    problems because there isn't just one "Shift JIS"; each vendor has their own
    flavor. The vendors should track their own mappings to Unicode, where they
    differ from JIS.

    The *VENDOR* mappings on the Unicode site are supplied by various vendors,
    and one of the MS mappings will get you the MS variety of Shift-JIS. Note
    that these are not supplied by Unicode, Inc, but by the vendors to us, so it
    may take a while to get an answer, but... If you have problems with one of
    these vendor mappings on the Unicode site, you can discuss it here, or fill
    out our error Reporting Form.

    For Shift-JIS in particular, please do read the caveats and look through the
    archives of this list. There are several known mapping anomalies.

            Rick



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