Name: bb33257 Date: 08/14/98


As far as character set conversions go, the Java API is
deficient, and seriously compromises its functionality.

Missing Characters. There is no way to control what happens
when a given converter does not support particular characters. The converters don't allow:
+ Customizable marker--use of anything but ? as a missing character marker.
+ Normalization--even if 0041 0300 could be represented by codes representing A-grave in
  the target set, they still don't convert to the A-grave codes.
+ Fallbacks--if 201D (curly right quotation mark) does not exist in a target set, it is
  represented by a ? instead of a reasonable fallback (").
+ Escapes--you can't have a missing character be represented by the standard \u201D notation.

Illegal Codes. There is no way to control what happens with illegal byte sequences. They are
usually just skipped, with no warning.



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