SC22/WG20 N838

May 11, 2001

 

Request to ITTF for consideration and advice.

 

Source:  SC22/WG20

 

 

In its meeting in May 2001, WG20 discussed the status of TR 10176, where the continuously growing repertoire of ISO/IEC 10646 impacts the table of characters which are allowed as identifiers in programming languages. 

 

Each approved amendment to ISO/IEC 10646 adds characters and requires TR 10176 with its identifier table to be revised and re-published since TRs can not be amended.

 

The same situation is true for TR 14652, and IS 14651; both these projects are strongly related to the 10646 repertoire and need constant revisions.

 

 

We are asking ITTF to consider the following possibility to easily keep the table up to date without re-publishing the Technical Report:

 

• The text of the TR contains the link to a document on an ITTF controlled web site.
• The web document contains links to the versioned tables
• The newer versions contain all characters of the older ones, thus are backward compatible.
• The compiler can claim conformance to versions of ISO/IEC 10646 by selecting the table that represents its repertoire of characters allowed as identifiers.

 

This method would allow that :

 

• new tables of characters in TR 10176 for use in identifiers can be approved and published much faster than today
• implementers can select from a variety of repertoires to meet their requirements
• implementations will be able to use earlier tables
• the tables are related to specific versions of ISO/IEC 10646

 

 

Not only TR 10176 would profit from such a publication option, but also TR 14652 and possibly other TRs.  WG20 is asking ITTF to consider allowing this method for Technical Reports the same way as it is already approved for International Standards. 

The best example is ISO/IEC 14651, where the Common Template Table resides on the ITTF web site and where a new revision of the table is in preparation.

 

For further information or discussion of technical details please contact WG20 through its convenor Arnold F. Winkler (also editor of TR 10176).

 

Arnold F. Winkler