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[xmppwg] Re: Last Call: 'XMPP Core' to Proposed Standard

On 9/26/03 at 12:24 PM -0500, Peter Saint-Andre wrote:

   Therefore I propose that the following text be added to
   Section 4.2 (Stream Attributes) of this memo:

o xml:lang -- An 'xml:lang' attribute (as defined in
Section 2.12 of the XML specification [1]) SHOULD be
included to specify the default language of any XML
character data sent over the stream. The language
specified for the stream MAY be overridden by the
'xml:lang' attribute of a specific XML stanza or a
child element thereof (see xml:lang (Section 8.1.5)).
The value of the attribute MUST be an NMTOKEN and
MUST conform to the format defined in RFC 3066 [15]. If no 'xml:lang' value is provided for the stream,
an implementation MUST assume that the language is
"en-US".

I had a conversation with Ted and now I see what his concern is. Let me explain what I think should be done. There are two parts:

1. The last sentence of the above is simply wrong. The idea that there should be an "English default" was introduced when we were talking about 'xml:lang' as some sort of locale request, and we came to consensus that we didn't want that. The only thing 'xml:lang' is telling you is the language of the contained text. Given that, we don't want to say that it defaults to English: What would it mean to say that some Unihan character should be interpreted as English? So, strike the last sentence.

2. Ted is concerned that since the XML spec says that the 'xml:lang' applies to *all* attribute values, implementors of future protocols based on XMPP (i.e., something other than IM) need to be warned that even though 'xml:lang' is on the entire stream, it only applies to text intended for human consumption. (His fear is that someone might do some goofy language dependent processing on an attribute value that is clearly not human readable text.) I think this can simply be addressed by changing "to specify the default language of any XML character data sent over the stream" to "to specify the default language of any human-readable XML character data sent over the stream". Ted may want to further comment on this.

pr
--
Pete Resnick <http://wwww.qualcomm.com/~presnick/>
QUALCOMM Incorporated