Re: encodings and cross references

> I have a big general concern about this.  In order to implement this, it
> will be necessary to treat accented chars (@'e on up) differently in a
> cross-reference node name than anywhere else.  In effect, we're
> specifying a unicode backend just for cross-manual xrefs!  This does not
> seem practical to me.

You are right. But it is also a place where makeinfo could interact with
other programs doing cross refs too... Like texi2html... Hum. Not a big 
deal, I believe makeinfo has such a dominating position and the issue 
doesn't concern enough real world manuals that it isn't a worry for now.

> So once again I'd like to suggest that we define the cross-manual xref
> standard *without* @-commands and *without* 8-bit chars.  This will
> cover 99.99% (at least) of existing Texinfo documents, and will be
> useful right away.

Right. I will nevertheless put some thoughts about these issues.

> We can deal with the complexities later, when there's actually support
> for them in the language.  After all, it's a lot more important to
> support 8-bit and accented chars *within* a manual than in cross-manual
> xrefs!  I see no particular harm in delaying that aspect of things.
> Sure, it would be nice if we could absolutely predefine the entire
> standard and never change it again, but it doesn't seem to be working out.

Thanks to perl possibilities I think that I will implement encoding in 8 bit 
character sets and in utf8 in texi2html soon. But I can wait for cross 
refs...

> Let's get what's useful now out there and implemented.  That's a big
> enough cud to chew, for starters.

Right.

> P.S. As for your questions, in my reading about Unicode, I seem to
> recall them stating that the decomposition into base characters +
> accents is preferred, and the precomposed characters are there primarily
> for compatibility and efficiency.  Base characters + accents will handle
> the general cases.  I don't see any point in using the precomposed characters.

That was my conclusion, too. However it seems that there are more than one
decomposition. I'll dig a bit more.

Pat
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