OK, folks, let's try to reach closure on the definition of the term
"character set".
RFC 1341 (mime1) has this definition:
The term "character set", wherever it is used in this
document, refers to a coded character set, in the sense of
ISO character set standardization work, and must not be
misinterpreted as meaning "a set of characters."
Mime2 has this definition:
The term "character set", wherever it is used in this
document, refers to a unique mapping of a byte stream to
glyphs, a mapping which does not require external profiling
information. For example, bare "ISO 10646" can't be the
charset parameter, because it requires several language
information for the unique mapping to glyphs. However, this
term can refer to multibyte character sets and to extension
techniques such as those used in ISO 2022.
I suggest this definition:
The term "character set" is used in this document to refer to a method
used with one or more tables to convert encoded text to a series of
octets. This definition is intended to allow various kinds of text
encodings, from simple single-table mappings such as ASCII, to complex
table switching methods such as those that use ISO 2022's techniques.
Ned, Nathaniel, Keith, Greg and/or anyone else, please respond. I
think this definition is flexible enough to allow the sorts of things
people want to do with MIME, and yet it is specific enough to convey
the intention of the working group.
Regards,
Erik