Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Hebrew in messages

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: Karl Randolph <kwrandolph AT email.com>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Hebrew in messages
  • Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2005 23:37:36 +0100

On 12/07/2005 20:05, Karl Randolph wrote:

Peter:

Thanks for the reference. I haven’t finished reading it yet. From what I read
in the first pages, it appears that MIME standard is limited to US-ASCII
only, no Hebrew possible.


On the contrary, the main purpose of this document is to extend previous standards to allow precisely the opposite. I quote from the abstract:

This set of
documents, collectively called the Multipurpose Internet Mail
Extensions, or MIME, redefines the format of messages to allow for

(1) textual message bodies in character sets other than
US-ASCII,

(2)...

I think you need to read more carefully, although of course such standards are difficult for non-specialists to understand.

I want to comment on the ibiblio archiving software: if a message is sent
throughout the system, should it not be stored in the archives unchanged? If
it changes the messaages, is it not a bug? Or is it in Redmondese “a feature”
that the messages are not stored unchanged? Even messages sent from your mail
program are changed by the ibiblio archiving program, is that what you
wanted? Is that what you expected and planned for? Do you see why I call it a
bug?


As a message passes through a series of computer systems, typically from a human writer to a human reader, what needs to be preserved is the CONTENT of the message, which consists (for a text message) of a series of characters (sometimes known as abstract characters). These characters may be encoded in several different ways, and the encodings used may change several times on the way. But this does not matter, because the content is unchanged. The underlying encoding is generally hidden from the actual human user.

But programs do often provide ways for expert users to peek behind the encoding and manipulate the rules. This is done so that people like you and me can find out what is happening when something goes wrong, as has happened in this case. But we should really look at what happens when we are not peeking behind the encoding. When you look at the b-hebrew archives in the normal way, do you see anything wrong? I think you will see nothing wrong with messages sent by me and most other list members. You may see things wrong with messages you have sent, but the bug which causes this is in your mail program, not in the archiving software.

In particular, I noticed that character entities are not stored as character
entities, they have been changed to and stored as html text strings. And
Hebrew letters that you *think* are being sent as windows-1255 characters,
are being changed to and stored as character entities. These are the changes
I have been able to document from messages sent from your mail program, not
the one I use. I think that is a bug. What other ways is the software
changing messages?


The software is changing the encoding of the messages, which is permissible, but it is not changing the content.

What I expect now is that if I go back in the archives to one of your
messages with some Hebrew in it, and quote it, that the Hebrew will come out
as unintelligeable html text strings. Is that not a bug?


Can you show me an example of this, with one of my messages? Try with this one, into which I will now insert some Hebrew in UTF-8 encoding:

אבגד

And you can look back to https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/b-hebrew/2005-July/023703.html, my posting on 5th July, for Hebrew in Windows-1255 encoding - look only at the "properly encoded Hebrew characters", the next lines are deliberately not properly encoded.

By the way, there is another clear bug in your mail software that it does not send information about which message is being replied to, which is why the archiving software takes each of your messages as the start of a new thread.


--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/



--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.323 / Virus Database: 267.8.12/46 - Release Date: 11/07/2005





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page