Subject: UTF-8 / Unicode / Local conversions

From: "Dave Steck" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2000 16:09:29 -0600

Applications need a way to display data obtained through the LDAP C API's.

To provide truly cross-directory and *cross-platform* API's, it seems there should be 
a standard set of C APIs to do UTF-8 <--> Unicode conversions.

There should also be a standard set of API's to convert between either UTF-8 or Unicode and local strings?
Does anyone know of such a standard or work underway?

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From: "Kurt D. Zeilenga" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2000 20:13:53 -0700

>Does anyone know of such a standard or work underway?

I believe it appropriate for the IETF LDAPext WG to specify an
an C API to converting between the local charset, T.61, and UTF-8.
	local <-> T.61
	local <-> UTF-8
	UTF-8 <-> T.61

However, as previously discussed, this can be specified as
a (Standard Track) extension.

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From: [email-masked] (Mark C Smith)
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2000 10:47:21 -0400

> a (Standard Track) extension.

In most environments, these functions are already provided.  I am not
convinced that the LDAPEXT group should duplicate the work being done by
OS and platform vendors.  T.61 may be a special case, but I for one
would like to let T.61 die.

-- 
Mark Smith
Directory Product Development / iPlanet E-Commerce Solutions
My words are my own, not my employer's.            Got LDAP?

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From: "Kurt D. Zeilenga" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2000 08:34:54 -0700

At 10:47 AM 6/19/00 -0400, Mark C Smith wrote:
>OS and platform vendors.

I have similiar concerns as well.  My comment was more to the point
that the working group had, IMO, reached some consensus previously
that such features would be best handled as extensions to the
API.

Note that I added T.61 to my statement because the C API
supports both LDAPv2 and LDAPv3.  If an extension provides UTF-8
conversions, it should provide T.61 (and vice versa).  It's not a
matter of letting T.61 die, it's a matter of letting LDAPv2 die.
I do believe that inconsistent LDAPv2 charset handling by various
vendors (including OpenLDAP) will eventually kill LDAPv2.

Kurt

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From: Chris Tomlinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2000 10:57:34 -0500

But T.61 is the main requirement for supporting LDAP v2. Also I don't think there is a standard set of T.61
conversions in Java. In fact as far as I know you can represent characters in T.61 that have no correspondence in
UCS-2/UTF-8.

ciao,
Christine Tomlinson

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From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2000 09:31:17 +0200

>in T.61 that have no correspondence in

I'd like to see an example; T.61 was on the list of charsets for which 
Unicode was supposed to provide round-trip compatibility (convert into 
Unicode and back with no loss of information).

                    Harald

--
Harald Tveit Alvestrand, EDB Maxware, Norway
[email-masked]