Fwd: draft-yergeau-rfc2279bis-02.txt for STANDARD

[Patrik Fältström <paf@cisco.com>]

This is the issue. We talk about the number of bytes in the UTF-8 code.

4-byte sequences give a range up to 10FFFF.

After talking with Paul Hoffman and John Klensin I suggest the 
following:

(a) Do _not_ reference Unicode instead of ISO-10646
(b) Say in some text that we move to Standard with just testing 1-4 
octets, changing the spec to cover just those values. That is, we 
should assume that the draft standard is for 1-4 octets, and therefore 
the full standard is too.
(c) Slip in a sentence somewhere (maybe as a security consideration) 
indicating that > 4 bytes is possible in the future and that programs 
should not be designed on the assumption that they will never see more 
than four bytes.   I.e., interoperability testing at <= 4 is fine, but 
I'd hate to set someone up for a buffer overflow problem.

Is this ok with people?

    paf

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Francois Yergeau <FYergeau@alis.com>
> Date: mån jan 6, 2003  20:02:41 Europe/Stockholm
> To: Patrik Fältström <paf@cisco.com>
> Subject: RE: draft-yergeau-rfc2279bis-02.txt for STANDARD
>
> Hello Patrick,
>
> I'm having second thoughts about all this and I would like to bounce 
> them on
> you to see what you think.
>
> One thing is about the interop testing I did in late November: it is
> incomplete, in that only 1-, 2- and 3-byte sequences were tested.  
> Adding
> 4-byte sequences would be fairly easy to do, but I am at a loss to 
> find a
> way to test 5- and 6-byte sequences.
>
> I'm now inclined to say that we should not test them, bite the bullet 
> and
> restrict UTF-8 to the UTF-16-accessible range of 0-10FFFF.  There was 
> some
> discussion on the usefor list in December about doing just that.  One
> commentor there said that we should "come to your senses" and restrict 
> to 4
> bytes.  And finally I got a private mail just today giving some 
> arguments
> for using Unicode 3.2 as the normative reference for UTF-8 instead of 
> 10646;
> doing so would also mean restricting to 4 bytes.
>
> I have a -03 draft all ready to go, but I'd like to hear your opinion 
> on the
> above before I send it in.
>
> Regards,
>
> --
> Franįois
>
> > -----Message d'origine-----
> > De : Patrik Fältström [mailto:paf@cisco.com]
> > Envoyé : 25 décembre 2002 02:39
> > Ā : Francois Yergeau; ietf-charsets@iana.org
> > Objet : draft-yergeau-rfc2279bis-02.txt for STANDARD
> >
> >
> > As Francois said there is consensus around -02 of the
> > document, and the
> > list is silent, I declare consensus.
> >
> > If you have issues with it, let the list know ASAP.
> >
> > I am now sending this to last call for STANDARD status.
> >
> > Francois, there are some weird characters, which seems to be
> > "paragraph
> > number" before each paragraph. Can you have one last
> > "editing" round of
> > the document, and let me know when -03 is announced?
> >
> >     paf
> >
> > On fredag, nov 1, 2002, at 11:22 Europe/Stockholm, Patrik Fältström
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Any action on these issues I posted some time ago? Comments?
> > >
> > > This document _really_ need to move forward.
> > >
> > >     paf
> > >
> > > On torsdag, okt 17, 2002, at 15:23 Europe/Stockholm, Patrik
> > Fältström
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Anyway, what needs to happen now is two things:
> > > >
> > > >  - The text in the document has to be change to say BOM is
> > not to be
> > > > used
> > > >  - Someone has to write down interoperability information between
> > > >    applications
> > > >
> > > > Regarding the interoperability, as Francois is working
> > hard with the
> > > > document, can I get someone else to write this? I myself
> > are mostly
> > > > irritated I can not copy and paste Unicode text between
> > TextEdit and
> > > > Microsoft software in MacOSX, so I might not be the best person to
> > > > write down things that work.... :-(