xml-dev - Re: Possible changes for XML 2nd Edition

[Tim Bray <tbray@textuality.com>]

At 02:51 PM 5/24/00 -0400, John Cowan wrote:

>Currently the XML Recommendation is silent about the handling of
>documents that contain "impossible" bytes.  For example, the byte 0xFF
>cannot appear in any UTF-8 encoded document.  We are considering making
>such violations of the encoding a fatal error.

Tricky one.  If detected, it should be a fatal error in the draconian
XML style.  
...
>CON: Some parsers may be relying on libraries supplied by the OS, which may
>not properly signal erroneous input.  

Wow... what would they actually do, I wonder?  This seems kind of horrid.
I think it should stay fatal, on the following analogy: if a document
contained "<foo<<<<>" and a broken system I/O library supressed all but
the first "<<<<<", the error would be undetectable.  But the document's
still broken.  I think the analogy is exact. -T.


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