On Sat, 5 Feb 2005, Henri Sivonen wrote:

> > >  "Alan J. Flavell" <flavell@p...> wrote:
> > > 
> > > > But that's OK, since any plausible encoding produced by the 
> > > > editor can be transformed by rote into utf-8 prior to 
> > > > subsequent XML processing (that's the XML relevance).

[...]

> The problem is that the XML spec is not only concerned with proper 
> UTF-8 streams but also says what to do in improper cases. If the 
> character encoding conversion is decoupled from the XML processor, 
> but this is viewed as an implementation detail so that the 
> combination of the converter and actual XML processor is subjected 
> to the conformance requirements placed on XML processors, 
> non-conformance ensues if the converter is lenient, which they 
> usually are.

Thanks.  I understand your point now.

I have this feeling that there's a lot of scope for practical utility 
without running the risk of falling foul of this particular problem;
but I won't drag the argument out.

all the best