Re: [bug-gettext] [bug #52932] XML doesn’t default to UTF-8

[Roumen Petrov]

Bruno Haible wrote:
> Update of bug #52932 (project gettext):
>
>                    Status:                    None => Need Info
>
>      _______________________________________________________
>
> Follow-up Comment #1:
>
> Why? Why make an assumption about the encoding (that assumption can be wrong)
> - thus possibly produce an file in another encoding than the one the caller
> expects? When we have a way to get away without this assumption and produce a
> valid and unambiguous XML always.

There is no exactly default encoding for xml as specification requires 
xml processor to support UTF-8 and UTF-16 encoding - for more details 
see  chapter https://www.w3.org/TR/xml/#charencoding .

Next encoding is required if is not UTF-8 or UTF-16. Actually is more 
complicated. Let me quote from specification (same chapter) : "In the 
absence of external character encoding information (such as MIME 
headers), parsed entities which are stored in an encoding other than 
UTF-8 or UTF-16 /MUST/ begin with a text declaration...."

So if there is no explicit specification of according to standard 
encoding is either UTF-8 or UTF-16.

Roumen