ietf-822
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What is a charset?

1993-03-04 02:03:59
Charset - an arbitrarily ordered numerical mapping of a collection of
conventionalized symbols usefull in written comunication.

I really like this definition.  My only quibble is a minor one: the
word "mapping" seems to imply a simple table that gives a one-to-one
relation between "symbols" and numbers, but this seems to me not to
accurately describe things like iso-2022-jp, which is really more like
an *algorithm* for converting between numbers and symbols.

How about changing it slightly like this:

  Charset - an algorithm for converting between octet streams and
  sequences of symbols useful in written communication.

Rationale: We probably don't need the word "conventionalized" if we
are saying "useful in written communication".  We also don't need the
words "arbitrary ordering" if we instead use the word "algorithm".
Instead of talking about "numerical mapping", we should probably refer
to octet streams since that's the way most of MIME refers to stuff.


Regards,

Erik


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