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unicode html

Jim jhefferon at smcvt.edu
Mon Jul 17 18:02:42 EDT 2006 
Sybren Stuvel wrote:
> Jim enlightened us with:
> > Ah, but I cannot change it.  It is not my machine and the folks who
> > own the machine perceive that the charset line that they use is the
> > right one for them.
>
> Well, _you_ are the one providing the content, aren't you?
?  This site has many people operating off of it (it is
sourceforge-like) and the operators (who are volunteers) are kind
enough to let us use it in the first place.  I presume that they think
the charset line that they use is the one that most people want.
Probably if they changed it then someone else would complain.

> Sounds like they either don't know what they are talking about, or use
> incompetent software. With Apache, it's very easy to give every
> directory its own default character encoding header.
I am operating under constraints.  Asking the operators of the site has
led to the understanding that I must work with the charset parameter
that I have.  That is, I have an environment in which I must work, and
whether you or I think the people providing the service should do it
differently doesn't matter.  I replied originally because I thought I
could give an example of HTML entities providing a way that I can solve
the problem that is entirely under my control.

> > Unfortunately, the <meta> tag idea also does not fly: see
> > http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/charset.html in section 5.2.2 where it
> > states that in a contest the charset parameter wins.
>
> I assume that with "the charset parameter" you mean "the HTTP header",
> as the <meta> tag also has a "charset parameter".
AIUI "charset parameter" is the language of the HTML standard that I
referred to.  For the meta tag, I at least would use "charset
attribute".

> > My only point is that things are complicated
> 
> Call me thick, but from my point of view they aren't.
;-)

Jim
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