Ella, can you provide any further information on the UNIVERSAL STRING
attribute? Like, what characters does it support, who has implemented it,
etc?
For what it is worth, the instructions for how to register a name with ANSI
specify that "the characters used for alphanumeric values must be
taken from the set defined in registration 102, the Teletex Set of Primary
Graphic Characters of the ISO Internaitonal Register of Coded
Character Sets to be used with Escape Sequences plus space. The Escape
Sequences follow:
G0: ESC 2/8 7/5
G1: ESC 2/9 7/5
G2: ESC 2/10 7/5
G3: ESC 2/11 7/5
C0: -
C1: -
A copy of the allowable characters is as found in the Teletex
Primary Set of Graphic Character Sets is attached. Please note,
the international currency symbol (position 02/04) is not supported."
The attached figure includes the following characters:
! " # [lozenge] % & ' ( ) * + , - . /
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 : ; < = > ?
@ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O
P Q R S T U V W X Y Z [ [nochar] ] [nochar] _
[nochar] a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o
p q r s t u v w x y z [nochar] | [nochar] [nochar] [nochar]
In summary, the characters found on the normal keyboard
that are not included are tilde, left-quote, dollar, caret, and backslash.
Of these, the most troublesome will probably be the dollar sign.
I'll bet that there is a used car lot somewhere with the legal name
of "Cheap Car$", and they won't be able to be listed at the national
level, according to ANSI's rules.
Since I still haven't located a copy of X.208, I don't know whether $
is included in PrintableString or not. But at least the & is included in
TeletexString, so AT&T can rest easier.
Maybe UNIVERSAL STRING will include full PostScript, so we can
handle Toys "R" Us correctly?
Bob.