Re: 23.0.60; [nxml] BOM and utf-8

[Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org>]

"Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@xemacs.org> writes:
>  > is the attached xml file (simple.xml) really invalid (as indicated by
>  > nxhtml) or is this a bug in nxhtml?
>
> Neither.  Emacs is (arguably) reading it incorrectly.

By "arguably" I presume you're referring to the "Microsoft does <random
stupid thing>, therefore everybody who doesn't do <random stupid thing>
is thing>incorrect" tactic.

I think think it would be a lot _more_ arguable that microsoft apps
which randomly add BOM to the beginning of files where it is invalid are
broken.  In general, other apps that read such files are not expecting
the BOM, and won't be able to deal with it.  So Emacs wouldn't be doing
the user any favors by hiding the BOM from him.

BOM is not part of UTF-8.  UTF-8 files that contain "BOM" are simply
UTF-8 files with a random weird character at the beginning.

-Miles

-- 
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