perl-unicode

Re: comment about big5

2002-12-05 17:30:04
On Thu, Dec 05, 2002 at 11:53:33AM -0500, Ambrose Li [CCCGT] wrote:
I noticed while searching for something that it was felt that
the original Big5 is "not used anywhere in the world", and this
feeling was put into the POD of some perl module. Unfortunately,
this statement is false.

I'm responsible for that statement. :-)

Pre-OS-X MacOS's by default (by which I mean the system fonts
which come with these OS's) use this original encoding.

Interesting.  Under my impression, MacOS9 uses the 'MacChineseTrad'
encoding (supported by Encode.pm), instead of the Big5-1984
standard.  Whilst it indeed lack the Eten/CP950 extensions, it also
contains Apple-specific percularities that are not included
in Big5-1984, as documented here:

    http://www.unicode.org/Public/MAPPINGS/VENDORS/APPLE/CHINTRAD.TXT

In particluar, its use of 0x81/0x82 as metric-indicating characters
and shortening of the lead byte range to 0xA1-0xAC differ from TCA/RDEC's
original spec.  Also, its use of PUA characters as variant tags is
different with other organization's Big5 maps.

Hence, imho, it would be a stretch to call the MacChineseTrad encoding
the original Big5-1984, although it is probably the closest to it.

Thanks,
/Autrjius/

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