ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2 N 3652/WG2 N2527
DATE: 2002-11-25

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2
Coded Character Sets
Secretariat: Japan (JISC)

DOC. TYPE

National Body Contribution

TITLE

Canadian Comments on SC 2 N 3638: WG 2 Proposal for Merging
ISO/IEC 10646 Parts 1 & 2 into One Part [WG 2 N 2506, N 2408] and N
3639: Working Draft for Merged ISO/IEC 10646 [WG 2 N 2499 R]

SOURCE

National Body of Canada

PROJECTSTATUSThis document is forwarded to WG 2 for consideration. It will also be
considered at the 12th SC 2 Plenary meeting to be held in Tokyo, Japan.

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P, O and L Members of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2 ; ISO/IEC JTC 1 Secretariat;
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15202n3652.pdf
5Secretariat ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2 - IPSJ/ITSCJ *(Information Processing Society of Japan/Information Technology
Standards Commission of Japan) Room 308-3, Kikai-Shinko-Kaikan Bldg., 3-5-8, Shiba-Koen, Minato-ku, Tokyo 1050011 Japan *Standard Organization Accredited by JISC
Telephone: +81-3-3431-2808; Facsimile: +81-3-3431-6493; E-mail: kimura@itscj.ipsj.or.jp

Canada accepts the project sub division proposal and the rationale provided in document SC2/N3638, andwill participate in the project.
Canada also accepts the document SC2/N3639 as a suitable draft text for the combined third edition for10646.
We have two small editorial comments.
1) N2408 (attachment to N3638) in its last paragraph on page 1 has « At the October 2001 meeting inSingapore, WG2 initiated work on two project sub-divisions -- Amendment 2 to Part 2, and Amendment 1 toPart 1, both involving character additions ». It should be corrected to « ... Amendment 2 to Part 1, andAmendment 1 to Part 2, ... » (as mentioned in last paragraph of page 2).
2) In N3639, page 7, figure 2 : it is not clear why plane E0 is still mentioned and has a solid border rather
than a dotted one. Suggest removing labels on planes 80 and E0, re-label 0F as 10 and show all the planes
beyond the new 10 with dotted lines all around.

CanadaAdditional Comments on WG2 N2999R (SC2 N3639)(Expert contribution from: V.S. Umamaheswaran, IBM Canada, 2002-11-08)
1. Editorial -- Throughout the document:a. Use of Plane 0, Plane 00, Plane 1, Plane 01, Plane 2, Plane 02, .. Plane E, Plane 0E, Plane F,Plane 0F etc. is inconsistent in many places in the document. Suggest rewrites to Plane 00, Plane
01, Plane 0E, Plane 0F ..consistently. Also, BMP, SMP, SIP and SSP are used instead of Plane 00
etc. in some places. In other places you see Plane 0 (BMP) etc. By using only BMP and SIP,
instead of Plane 00, Plane 02 etc. everywhere it makes sense, may make life of editor easier andimprove the consistency.
Use of Group 0, Group 00 .. is inconsistent in many places in the document. Suggest rewrites touse Group 00 wherever Group 0 occurs.
The above inconsistency in notations also occurs in the Collections detailed in Annex A.
b. References to clauses and annexes occur in many styles .. the following variants are some of them:"see clause xx", "see sub-clause xx', "see xx", "(see clause xx)", "(see xx")", "(xx)" , "described inxx", "listed in Annex xx", Annex is sometimes capitalized, mostly not, etc. These references shouldbe checked and cleaned up to use a consistent style -- for example "see clause xx", "(specified inAnnex xx)", etc. throughout the document. There may be an ISO Style guide that specifies how thisshould be done.
Whichever form is chosen, please apply it consistently throughout the document.
============
The following editorial comments to the combined parts draft text, may be candidates for Editorial
Corrigenda to be processed along with FDAM-2 to Part 1, or FDAM-1 to Part 2, as appropriate, if it will help
in progressing the combined part without any further delay.
============
2. Individual Editoriala. Page 1, Left column, paragraph above Note 1
This reads clumsy .. At first reading, it meant that a character assigned to the BMP will not be
duplicated in the Supplementary Planes. Also no duplicates were allowed within the set ofSupplementary Planes. But the reverse was sort of left OPEN--i.e. A character already coded inthe SMP (for example) could be duplicated in the BMP in the future??!!
Suggest combing the two sentences should be combined into one. Something like:"A graphic character will be assigned only one code position in the standard, locatedeither in the BMP or in one of the supplementary planes."b. Page 3, Clause 4.23
change the first 'a' to 'A' -- to be consistent with other definitions in 4.
c. Page 4, Clause 4.33
Missing '.' at the end of the sentence -- to be consistent with other definitions in 4.
d. Page 4, Clause 4.38
Add to the definition: A plane other than Plane 00 of Group 00; a plane that accommodates ...
e. Page 4, Clause 4.42, second bullet
Rewrite to read "... preceded by an RC-element from .. " -- consistent with text in the first bullet.
f. Page 5, Third paragraph in the left column
Suggest reword "... from 16 supplementary planes of group 00 (Planes 01 to 10), in addition tothe BMP (Plane 00), in a form ...".
g. Page 5, Last paragraph in the left column
Suggest reword "... according to ISO/IEC 4873 that have .. " or "... according to ISO/IEC 4873,
which have ... ". Grammar checkers consistently insist that a comma should be present before
a 'which' or change to use 'that'.
h. Page 6 Figure 1 - this could be improved:
Move the arrow and text Plane 00 of Group 00 .. such that the text is outside the boxes, and thearrow points to the first plane.
Move the arrowhead associated with 'Plane FF of Group 00' a little bit away from the edge of theprevious plane.
i. Page 7, Figure 2 - needs some fixes
Remove the labels 80 and E0 from the planes. Change the edges of plane E0 to dotted lines.
The private use planes and groups beyond Planes 0F and 10 have been removed from thestandard.
j. Page 8, Clause 6.4-c
It would be clearer if reworded as .. "follows the source-reference rule given in Clause 27 ...".
Also, suggest adding a forward reference to the construction of names for Ideographs in clause
28.1 and Hangul Syllables in clause 28.2, after the last paragraph in this clause.
k. Page 8 - last line of the right column:
Suggest splitting and rewording as ... "to F, or a to f). For example:"l. Page 11 - Title of clause 13.1
The title should be: "Two-octet BMP form (UCS-2)" -- There is a forward reference to clause
13.1 from Clause 8 First Paragraph on page 9 -- which hints that 13.1 is defining UCS-2; also tobe consistent with the title of 13.2 for UCS-4.
m. Page 12 - right column, first line after the last ESC ..
Suggest rewording .. "or from the lists in C.5 for UTF-16 and D.6 for UTF-8 forms.
n. Page 13, clause 16.4, after the last ESC.. The sentence beginning with"For a subset of C0 or C1 sets, the final octet F ... " should be changed to "For other C0 or C1
sets, ...".
This change is needed to be fully in line with the intent of the first paragraph of Clause 11 -which allows for 'sets or subsets' not only from 6429 but from other sources as well.
o. page 13, Clause 17
Reword to start with: "Clause 33 ... "p. Page 14, left column, before the last paragraph.
Suggest a forward reference to Annex E via a note .. such as:
NOTE - A list of characters that may be rendered as mirror images in a bidirectional context isprovided in Annex E.
q. Page 14, Clause 19, First line
Suggest reword to : "A class of left and right handed .."r. Page 14, clause 19.1
It will be helpful to give a reference to the normative references here .. by rewording:"The Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm (see clause 3) ... ".
s. Page 15, Clause 20.4, Right Column, First paragraphI suspect this paragraph should really be a NOTE.
t. Page 17, Right Column, NOTE 4

There is a reference to the Unicode data base here. It will be useful to give the URL for thisdatabase at this spot.
There are mentions of Unicode sprinkled at various places in the document -- besides the BiDi
and Normalization TRs, some way of adding a non-normative reference to Unicode standard
and the Unicode database should be found.
The standard has only Normative Reference clause 3, and Annex S for Sources of Characters,
as two places where references to external sources can be made. Not sure if references to theUnicode database and to the Unicode standard V3.2, V4.0 etc. can be included in Annex S -under a separate sub-item called "Other related standards".. or something like that.
u. Page 18, Clause 22, Fourth paragraph
Suggest rewording .. "... (characters that are part of the CJK ..)" .. occurs at two place.
v. Page 18, right column, last line of first paragraph:It will be helpful by rewording ".. UAX#15 (see clause 3)."
w. Page 19, Clause 25.3, Last sentence
Add a reference .. "Normalizing (see clause 24) these coded ... ".
x. Page 20, Clause 26.2 Title
Suggest rewording to: "Features of Indic and similar alphabetic scripts"
or "Features of scripts used in India and some other South Asian countries"
Myanamar, in some peoples' minds, is NOT Indic.
y. Page 20, Clause 27.1, First paragraph, last line
Reword to: "... in the code tables in Clause 33, are described in annex S. .. "z. Page 20, Clause 27.1, Paragraph after Note 1
Reword to: "The following ... in both the BMP and the SIP. The set of .. ". If Plane 0, Plane 2etc. is retained, it has to be changed to Plane 00 in Group 00 ad Plane 02 in Group 02 etc.
aa. Page 21, Right Column - bullet for columns 27--33
K4-dddd is the only Decimal digits only use in this entire table. If this is not finalized, and if
DPRK can be requested to provide the resource in K4-hhhh format, it will make it consistent withthe rest of the source references in this file, and will make the life of any parser a little easier -especially if these dddd-s have to be converted to hhhh by the reading software of the file.
bb. Page 22, Note under the Figure in the rectangle.
At first glance, reading the text of the note alone, raised the question -- how come the decimal
numbers in the last line are not equivalent to the hex numbers in the second last line. The
explanation is in the middle of the third paragraph following this Note.
Suggest either -- delete this NOTE, since the explanation is in the text;
or copy the second sentence starting with "The first line below the graphic symbol ... for position
number." as the text to replace the current text of the NOTE.
cc. Page 22, First paragraph after the Note
Suggest rewording .. "both in decimal (in row / cell format) and in hexadecimal form.
dd. Page 22, clause 27.3, First paragraph
Reword to: "The following ... in both the BMP and the SIP. The set of .. ".
If Plane 0, Plane 2 etc. is retained, it has to be changed to Plane 00 in Group 00 and Plane 02 inGroup 02 etc.
ee. Page 22, Right Column, Bullet with 07-12 octet:
Suggest reword to "octet: Code position of corresponding CJK ... "ff. Page 23, clause 28.2, Second paragraph, second line:
Suggest reword to ".. representation is their two-octet value expressed as four hexadecimaldigits."
gg. Page 25, Figure 3
FDD0 to FDEF -- range should also be shown in black (not graphic characters).
hh. Page 26, Figure 4
Suggest removing the Black zones completely. Replace the Black Zones for 00-1F and 7F-9F
with white zones with 'Controls' in each of these ranges.
ii. Page 27, clause 30
Suggest adding:
The Plane 01 of Group 00 is the Supplementary Multilingual Plane (SMP). (Similar to the firstparagraph of clause 31, on page 28).
jj. Page 27, clause 30, first paragraphSuggest rewording to:"The SMP is used for encoding graphic characters used in other scripts of the world thatare not encoded in the BMP. Most, but not all, of the scripts encoded to date in the SMP
are not in use as living scripts by modern user communities."(This rewording makes it similar to what is in clause 31, and avoids any hints at scriptsscheduled for the BMP or SMP etc. "... not already scheduled for encoding in the BMP" and "..
scheduled for encoding in the SMP ...", etc. parts of the current text hint at some other plan /document that has already decided in some fixed manner where the different scripts will beencoded. While WG2 / UTC use the Roadmap as a tool to guide in the categorization of scripts
their possible planes etc. it is not appropriate to include this in clause 30. The word 'scheduled'
can also imply some timetable behind it.)kk. Page 1004 - Right Column
The list of collection names under Note 3, is part of 3, and would be better to be using the same
point size as the text in the note. It is smaller than the point sizes of the text in the mainclauses, but not small enough to match the point size of the text in the Note. This will ensurethat the list is not considered to be normative and is part of the Note.
ll. Page 1009, clause A.5
The collections in this clause start from Unicode 3.1. It will be useful to add a NOTE to indicate
the equivalent collection numbers corresponding to (even though not labeled as such) Unicode
2.0, 2.1 and Unicode 3.0 -- which were all entirely fixed BMP collections with one or two
additional characters. Unicode 2.0 was = BMP Amd.7 collection 301, I think Unicode 2.1 was
301 + 20AC (the Euro Sign), Unicode 3.0 was BMP 2nd Ed 302 + One ??Greek?? character.
mm.
Page 1030 Right Column, Last line
There is a reference to Unicode V3.2 here. My earlier comment about reference for suchmentions of Unicode in the text applies here too.
3. More than just editorial:
Page 1027 Alternate format characters - Missing 2060 WJ (probably should be added to FPDAM2 ofPart 1)
The character 2060 WORD JOINER should be added to the list .. it was targeted to be taking over therole of ZWNBSP (FEFF) and freeing up FEFF to be exclusively useable for BOM in the long run. I
suspect its description will be identical to what is there for ZWNBSP in the current text. (Has to beverified with the text in Unicode, and the submitter of the proposal to add this character.)
Not sure if there are other Alternate format characters that have been added to the characters list, forwhich no explanation is added in this Annex (in Amd 1 to Part 1, Amd 2 to Part 1). There should not be
any Alt Fmt Chars in Part 2.
4. The following comment .. if accepted may be processed as a Technical Corrigendum to the standard.
Page 10 Clause 11Not sure if the standard should have a specific SC identified in it as the one to maintain / update etc. If
SC2 disappears, or JTC1 disappears, which is possible under normal reorganizations of ISO/IEC, thestandard has to Revised / Amended to make a change to this Clause alone, in the future. I have notseen too many ISO standards -- other than Registry type of documents which even has a similar clausein it. Under normal ISO process the revision and updating of any ISO standard is undertaken by aTC/SC which is assigned to the task -- this is business as usual, and need not be entered inside thestandard itself. I know this clause has been there from the beginning of this standard.
WG2 should consider deleting this clause entirely, or do not hardcode JTC1/SC2 in this clause.
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