🚀 go-pugleaf

andersa@Riga.DoCS.UU.SE (Anders Andersson) writes:

> [note Followup-To: comp.std.internat]
> 
> In article <1gt5a2EINNin3@uni-erlangen.de>, unrza3@cd4680fs.rrze.uni-erlangen
> > It should also be noted, that at least one existing OS (Windows NT)
> > uses a 2 byte encoding both internally (e.g. in filenames in Fnodes
> > on the disc) as well as in text files. Text files always begin with
>                           ^^
> > FEFF as a magic code for ISO 10646 textes. This code also indicates,
> > whether it is a littleendian file.
> 
> Is this magic code visible to the user without any special tricks,
> or is it filtered away by the operating system when the file is
> opened for reading?  Suppose I obtain a file, that is labeled as
> containing IS 10646 text, via FTP from a server running Windows NT,
> to a client running a different system--will I then get this 0xFEFF
> magic code (which is meaningless on my system) too, or will I get a
> 'clean' IS 10646 text?

Well, I guess programs will "see" either "0xFEFF" or "0xFFFE" depending
on whether the file has been written by a big or a little endian.
If you have a system for which ISO 10646 text files is not meaningless,
the "magic" code isn't meaningless.

> I remember seeing text files containing an explicit ^Z (0x1A) at
> the end, due to their origin on some home computer where ^Z was the
> ordinary EOF marker, even though I was sitting on a system with
> perfectly functional EOF pointers in the file descriptor blocks...

Never mind. That's a totaly different story. 

> I hope the above isn't yet another version of that problem (non-
> standard tags or markers floating around with standards-compliant
> data on systems not understanding them)?

The tag *is* defined the UniCode standard and so it should be defined
in ISO 10646, too (this is an assumption). All systems capable of
reading/displaying UniCode/ISO 10646-16-bit (the latter is not the
official name) should follow this tagging.

> Alternatively, does this magic code have any chance of becoming
> a standard itself?

See above.

        Kosta


-- 
  Kosta Kostis, Talstrasse 25, D-6074 Roedermark 3, Germany
  kosta@blues.kk.sub.org                                        (home)
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