I'll also note that the MIME term "character set" is NOT the same
thing as the ISO term "coded character set".
What is the difference?
The RFC1345, where many MIME charsets are defined, follows ISO
terminology closely, and has the following definition of "charset":
The ISO definition of the term "coded character set" is as follows:
"A set of unambiguous rules that establishes a character set and the
one-to-one relationship between the characters of the set and their
coded representation." and this definition may be subject to
different interpretations.
RFC 1345 is not a standards-track document, and is therefore
irrelevant to this discussion. The RFC 1521 definition holds.
MIME does not require that there be a one-to-one relationship between
characters and their coded representation; it requires only that there
be a unique mapping *from* the coded representation of a sequence of
characters to those characters.
Keith