Re: [xml-dev] Why would MS want to make XML break on UNIX, Perl, Python, etc ?

[Richard Tobin <richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>]

>> I cannot see why they would cause any problems that UTF-16 doesn't.
>
>Sure, but then you talk about NUL being bad. UTF-16 includes a lot of zero 
>bytes (as you know) so the point is moot.

No!  There is a crucial difference here:

The supposed problem with control characters in general is that the
presence of those bytes in files causes problems.  I am suggesting
that UTF-16 already gives us those problems.

But the specificproblem with nul is in XML APIs.  Any C API that uses
nul-terminated strings will not be able to handle nuls in those
strings.  If the strings are UTF-16 strings, they are terminated by a
UTF-16 nul character, not by a single zero byte.  UTF-16 characters
with zero bytes are not a problem.

-- Richard