Re: character encoding with MSXML3

[MacEwan, James ]


> >
> I thought that the ALT-130 character was something a non-Microsoft browser
> running on a non-
> Windows operating system might have trouble with and that putting out
> é was a better bet for a public web site with users running
> who-know-what. (i.e. that practically every HTML compliant browser would
> render the é character correctly.)
>
> Perhaps a more fundamental question that I need answered is is the
é
> output better than the ALT-130 character (or are the two equivalent for
any
> browser)?
>

ALT-130 depends on the operating system, language, and perhaps the keyboard.
How it displays in a Microsoft system depends on the "code page" in use.
When you press ALT-130, some particular character value is put into the
file.

An xml processor will understand that code using its encoding, whether
declared or default.  It won't be using you code page unless you are using a
processor that understands code page 1252, or whatever.  Even if you are -
which would be rare - the processor will translate that character into
UTF-8, UTF-16 (as in the DOM) or whatever the processor uses internally.

A defined character reference uniquely specifies some well-defined
character.  How it will display, will still depend on whether the display
system or browser knows how to display the thing correctly, as well as
whether the browser understands the encoding in use.

Cheers,

Tom P


 XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list