From: Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us>
Message-Id: <200502210420.j1L4KEP14031@candle.pha.pa.us>
Subject: Re: Suggestion for Encodings table
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.58.0502161114300.1141@dhcp-100-120.int.journyx.com>
To: Preston Landers <planders@journyx.com>
Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2005 23:20:14 -0500 (EST)
Cc: pgsql-docs@postgresql.org
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Preston Landers wrote:
> 
> http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.0/interactive/multibyte.html#CHARSET-TABLE
> 
> I would humbly suggest a few improvements to that Encodings table to
> improve the clarity.
> 
> Many of the entries clearly indicate the language or writing system, such
> as WIN1256 = "Windows CP1256 (Arabic)"
> 
> I would suggest that every single entry should be described that way with
> the common language or writing system name.  Even Unicode could say "All
> languages".
> 
> In particular, the "WIN" encoding just says "CP1251" -- this is Cyrillic
> (Russian) but some people might just see the WIN and assume it's the
> character set that Western/US Windows uses (CP 1252).
> 
> It's an easy mistake to make and one I see repeated frequently on other
> web pages (calling Windows "Western" CP 1251.)  Someone reading English
> language docs and seeing a "WIN" character set might naturally assume that
> it is the English Windows character set.  (Which BTW is not currently
> supported by PG for conversions.)
> 
> Some more examples that might improve clarity:
> 
>  LATIN5 should say "Turkish"
> 
>  LATIN6 should say "Nordic"
> 
>  ALT and KOI8 should say "Cyrillic"   (or Russian)

Great.  Would you submit a patch to the SGML sources?

-- 
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