Re: [tlug] Japanese encoding

[Jim Breen <jwb@example.com>]

[Ulrich Plate (Re: [tlug] Japanese encoding) writes:]
>>  I'm sure I could handle
>> default layout elements for the web pages to be in UTF-8, but what if people
>> post messages in Shift-JIS and I try to display them in UTF-8? Anyway, I'll
>> have to read up some more on this first.

Depends where the messages come from. If they are from a WWW form you wrote,
they'll be in the code you specify. If they are emails, etc. more hassles
but it's possible to detect and convert.

>> Jim Breen wrote:
>> > I don't know what the "four little '>'" are, but I guess they are
>> > in ISO-8859-1?  If so, state that as the code of the page, and the
>> > autodetect is overridden.
>> 
>> Yes, they are. But if I code the page as iso-8859-x, I cannot have Japanese
>> on the same page, can I?

Correct. What exactly are they? Can you tell me the code values. Probably/
possibly the equivalent is in JIS X 0208.

>> > I think it's a wee bit early for pure UTF8 pages to be servicable. I'm
>> > about to make UTF8 an option on my WWWJDIC server, mainly so that the
>> > French and German can get displayed mixed with the Japanese without too
>> > much mucking around. At present I'm putting in é etc.
>> 
>> That's an alternative, but of limited use (only European character sets),
>> and I'd still have to filter German input and convert it to ü and such.
>> What if my community grows out of proportion and the Koreans demand their
>> own forum? :-) No, I'd really love to go the Unicode way, mix Japanese and
>> Chinese like nobody's business and use IPA characters for phonetics and
>> all...

The main reason I wouldn't settle firmly on UTF8 is that there are a lot of
people out there with browsers that either can't support it, or do a crappy
job of it. I guess I probably have a larger and less controlled user base.

It'd the future, though.

Jim

-- 
Jim Breen  (j.breen@example.com  http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/)
Computer Science & Software Engineering,                Tel: +61 3 9905 3298
P.O Box 26, Monash University,                          Fax: +61 3 9905 5146
Clayton VIC 3800, Australia      ジム・ブリーン@モナシュ大学