From the perspective of a user of Unicode products, conformance to Unicode
is very important. However, the degree to which a product implements the
required Unicode functions and supports various scripts is an important
topic not addressed by the Unicode conformance chapter.
Yes, qualification by script is a better way to start analyzing Unicode
"support".
Since Arabic tends to be one of the more challenging scripts, let me take a
quick look at what Unicode "support" of the Arabic script might entail. By
the way, I am not an expert in Arabic, and I am writing this for your
feedback and comments. Certainly, other approaches are possible.
1. Which subset of Arabic characters are included?
2. Spell checking
a. Arabic combining characters
3. Grammar checking
4. Arabic sorting, which likely depends on the language (Arabic, Persian,
Urdu, etc.)
5. Presentation imaging (printing & displaying)
a. Arabic shaping (map character to correctly presentation glyph depending
on context)
b. Bidirectional algorithm for presentation
c. Arabic combining characters
d. Mirroring character shapes for presentation
1) Opening/closing
2) Mathematical symbols
6. Support for Arabic presentation forms
(While you should not generate them, what do you do if you receive them?)
a. Presentation
b. Reverse mapping into "pure" Arabic characters for spell checking and
other informational processing
Ed Hart
Edwin F. Hart
edwin.hart@jhuapl.edu
The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
11100 Johns Hopkins Road
Laurel, MD 20723-6099
USA
+1-443-778-6926 (Baltimore area)
+1-240-228-6926 (Washington, DC area)
+1-443-778-1093 (fax)
+1-240-228-1093 (fax)
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