Message-ID: <4DD62A01.6010206@2ndQuadrant.com>
Date: Fri, 20 May 2011 10:44:49 +0200
From: Susanne Ebrecht <susanne@2ndQuadrant.com>
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To: Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net>
CC: pgsql-docs@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: non-ASCII characters in SGML documentation (and elsewhere)
References: <1305841740.3952.32.camel@vanquo.pezone.net>
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Hello Peter,

On 19.05.2011 23:49, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> So, some questions:
>
>        * Should we consistently use entities for encoding non-ASCII
>          characters in SGML?  Or use LATIN1 freely?
>        * Should we allow/use non-ASCII characters in the release notes?
>        * What encoding should the HISTORY file have?
>        * Should we allow non-ASCII characters in general source files?
>        * If so, what should the encoding be?

one more argument for switching to XML? :)

I guess we will get some more non-ASCII signs in documentation.
How do you want to document the collation stuff?
Collations are for all that isn't ASCII.
Our docs usually have  small examples.
I can imagine that you want to place German or Russian letters or whatever
else as examples into doc.

Do you have another idea then using utf8?
What do you expect what not would fit into utf8?
I would expect words like déjà vu - means words that English just copied
from French and still use the French accents.
Or even personal names with e.g. umlauts, accents, and other special 
signs from
special languages.

Also consider - usually editors (vi, emacs) use utf8 today.

Btw.
For German docs I use utf8.
The HTML output works well with both 'ö' and '&ouml;'.
I not yet tested other outputs.

I just changed to utf8 in stylsheets and use export SP_ENCODING=XML
before compiling.

Unfortunately index sorting neither works with 'ö' nor '&ouml;' yet.
We are still fighting with it and try to figure out how we can force that
it will sort correct.
Just changing makefile didn't help.

But - in English docs - I doubt that you have to deal with indexes on 
special
words using non-ASCII characters.

Means very small and low effort changes already might help.

Susanne

-- 
Susanne Ebrecht - 2ndQuadrant
PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Training and Services
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