From: Asmus Freytag (asmusf@ix.netcom.com)
Date: Mon Mar 03 2003 - 00:10:39 EST
At 07:21 AM 3/2/03 -0800, Mark Davis wrote:
> > "C12a When a process interprets a code unit sequence which
> > purports to be in a Unicode character encoding form, it
> > shall treat ill-formed code unit sequences as an error
> > condition, and shall not interpret such sequences as
> > characters."
Can we agree or disagree on whether an API that returns an error code, but
also an output buffer that contains a simplistic conversion of the
erroneous sequence is or is not conformant.
To me it seems that by setting an error flag in the return code, the API
has signalled that the user should not treat the output as containing
correct Unicode.
Such an API design (on a low enough level) might strike the right balance
between between usability in many different environments and satisfying the
formal requirement.
The ideal case is one where the converter stops in a restartable
configuration, allowing the client to implement (or ask for) a variety of
error-recovery options. However, such an interface requires a lot of
thought and may be difficult to implement for some
language/platform/library environments. Further, it may be unnecessarily
difficult to use for at least some conceivable clients.
A./
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