[Idna-arabicscript] mapping of Full Stops

[Erik van der Poel]

In my opinion, it would be premature to include U+06D4 in the IDNAbis
mapping draft (apart from the fact that it is rather late in the Last
Calls process to be making such a change). U+3002 has a much longer
history in IDNA and is much more firmly established. If U+06D4 would
be mapped to U+002E at the data interchange level (think HTML), there
would be a period where IDNA2003 implementations and new
implementations would resolve domain names differently. Of course, the
IDNAbis mapping draft explicitly states that it is intended to be used
at the UI level (e.g. keyboard input), but, frankly, I don't think we
have much experience with IDNA implementations that distinguish
between the UI and data interchange levels.

Erik

On Sun, Oct 11, 2009 at 6:28 AM, Sarmad Hussain
<sarmad.hussain at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks.
>
> Yes, it is a request to include U+06D4 in the document explicitly as
> it seems possible.
>
> The reason it becomes important for our language community is because
> if it is listed it will most likely be implemented by the application
> providers (even if it may not be binding because these IDNAbis
> documents will be read thoroughly), and if it is not listed it will
> not be implemented (as it is difficult for application providers to
> investigate the need for all the different language communities).  So
> listing can make a big difference.
>
> regards,
> Sarmad
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Oct 11, 2009 at 6:15 PM, Vint Cerf <vint at google.com> wrote:
>> keep in mind that the Mappings document is NOT normative. It is intended to
>> give some ideas for localization and pre-processing. The important point is
>> that only U+002E will be recognized in protocol as a label separator. For
>> purposes of exchanging IDNs, that's important. For local contexts, one might
>> allow alternative full-stop inputs but these would need to be converted to
>> the U+002E form prior to initiating a DNS query. It would probably be wise
>> also to convert to U+002E for purposes of canonical exchange of domain names
>> with other parties.
>> For Pete Resnick and Paul Hoffman:
>> this email might be interpreted as a request to add U+06D4 to the Mappings
>> list of potential local mappings to U+002E. Have you an opinion whether this
>> edit would be appropriate?
>> vint
>>
>>
>> On Oct 11, 2009, at 9:52 AM, Sarmad Hussain wrote:
>>
>>
>> In earlier discussions on U+06D4 (ARABIC FULL STOP), which is necessary for
>> Urdu as a label separator (the reasons have been given on this list
>> earlier), it was suggested that the various full stops will not be allowed
>> and be mapped.  It was subsequently requested to include the mapping
>> reference in IDNA200x documents to ensure that the application providers
>> incorporate it, but the request was not considered positively as it was
>> perhaps suggested that such recommendations can not be made part of the
>> protocol.  However, the recent mapping document
>> (http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-idnabis-mappings-04) says on pg. 2:
>>
>>
>>   4.  [I-D.ietf-idnabis-protocol] is specified such that the protocol
>>
>>        acts on the indvidual labels of the domain name.  If an
>>
>>        implementation of this mapping is also performing the step of
>>
>>        separation of the parts of a domain name into labels by using the
>>
>>        FULL STOP character (U+002E), the following character can be
>>
>>        mapped to the FULL STOP before label separation occurs:
>>
>>
>>
>>        *  IDEOGRAPHIC FULL STOP (U+3002)
>>
>>
>>
>>        There are other characters that are used as "full stops" that one
>>
>>        could consider mapping as label separators, but their use as such
>>
>>        has not been investigated thoroughly.
>>
>>
>> If this is being explicitly done for U+3002, it could be done explicitly for
>> ARABIC FULL STOP (U+06D4) as well. What is the reason for not including
>> other such possible cases explicitly?
>>
>> Regards,
>> Sarmad
>>
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>> _______________________________________________
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>> Idna-arabicscript at lists.irnic.ir
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>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> ---------------------------------------------------
> Sarmad Hussain
> Professor and Head
> Center for Research in Urdu Language Processing
> National University of Compter and Emerging Sciences
> B Block Faisal Town
> Lahore, Pakistan
>
> Ph: +9242 111 128128
> Fax: +9242 5165232
> URL: www.crulp.org
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