| Internet Engineering Task Force | H. Flanagan, Ed. |
| Internet-Draft | RFC Editor |
| Intended status: Informational | August 19, 2015 |
| Expires: February 20, 2016 |
The Use of Non-ASCII Characters in RFCs
draft-flanagan-nonascii-05
In order to support the internationalization of protocols and a more diverse Internet community, the RFC Series must evolve to allow for the use of non-ASCII characters in RFCs. While English remains the required language of the Series, the encoding of future RFCs will be in UTF-8, allowing for a broader range of characters than typically used in the English language. This document describes the RFC Editor requirements and guidance regarding the use of non-ASCII characters in RFCs.
This document updates RFC 7322.
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
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Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
This Internet-Draft will expire on February 20, 2016.
Copyright (c) 2015 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License.
For much of the history of the RFC Series, the character encoding used for RFCs has been ASCII [ANSI.X3-4.1986]. This was a sensible choice at the time: the language of the Series has always been English, a language that primarily uses ASCII-encoded characters (ignoring for a moment words borrowed from more richly decorated alphabets); and, ASCII is the "lowest common denominator" for character encoding, making cross-platform viewing trivial.
There are limits to ASCII, however, that hinder its continued use as the exclusive character encoding for the Series. The increasing need for easily readable, internationalized content suggests it is time to allow non-ASCII characters in RFCs where necessary. To support this move away from ASCII, RFCs will switch to supporting UTF-8 as the default character encoding and allow support for a broad range of Unicode character support. [UnicodeCurrent] Note that the RFC Editor may reject any codepoint that does not render adequately in enough formats or on in enough rendering engines using the current tooling.
Given the continuing goal of maximum readability across platforms, the use of non-ASCII characters should be limited in a document to only where necessary within the text. This document describes the rules under which non-ASCII characters may be used in an RFC. These rules will be applied as the necessary changes are made to submission checking and editorial tools.
This document updates the RFC Style Guide [RFC7322].
The details described in this document are expected to change based on experience gained in implementing the RFC production center's toolset. Revised documents will be published capturing those changes as the toolset is completed. Other implementers must not expect those changes to remain backwards-compatible with the details described this document.
Two fundamental requirements inform the guidance and examples provided in this document. They are:
This section describes the guidelines for the use of non-ASCII characters in the header, body, and reference sections of an RFC. If the RFC Editor identifies areas where the use of non-ASCII characters negatively impacts the readability of the text, they will request alternate text.
The RFC Editor may, in cases of entire words represented in non-ASCII characters, ask for a set of reviewers to verify the meaning, spelling, characters, and grammar of the text.
Where the use of non-ASCII characters is purely as part of an example and not otherwise required for correct protocol operation, escaping the non-ASCII character is not required. Note, however, that as the language of the RFC Series is English, the use of non-ASCII characters is based on the spelling of words commonly used in the English language following the guidance in the Merriam-Webster dictionary [MerrWeb].
The RFC Editor will use the primary spelling listed in that dictionary by default.
This particular response contains unreserved and non-ascii UTF-8 characters. This response is well formed. A parser must accept this message. Message Details : unreason SIP/2.0 200 = 2**3 * 5**2 но сто девяносто девять - простое Via: SIP/2.0/UDP 192.0.2.198;branch=z9hG4bK1324923 Call-ID: unreason.1234ksdfak3j2erwedfsASdf CSeq: 35 INVITE From: sip:user@example.com;tag=11141343 To: sip:user@example.edu;tag=2229 Content-Length: 154 Content-Type: application/sdp
Example of non-ASCII characters that do not require escaping [RFC4475]:
Person names may appear in several places within an RFC. In all cases, valid Unicode is required. For names that include non-ASCII characters, an author-provided, ASCII-only identifier is required to assist in search and indexing of the document.
Example for the header:
Network Working Group L. Daigle
Request for Comments: 2611 Thinking Cat Enterprises
BCP: 33 D. van Gulik
Category: Best Current Practice ISIS/CEO, JRC Ispra
R. Iannella
DSTC Pty Ltd
P. Fältström (P. Faltstrom)
Tele2/Swipnet
June 1999
Example for the Acknowledgements:
OLD: The following people contributed significant text to early versions of this draft: Patrik Faltstrom, William Chan, and Fred Baker.
PROPOSED/NEW: The following people contributed significant text to early versions of this draft: Patrik Fältström (Patrik Faltstrom), 陈智昌 (William Chan), and Fred Baker.
Company names may appear in several places within an RFC. The rules for company names follow similar guidance to that of person names. Valid Unicode is required. For company names that include non-ASCII characters, an ASCII-only identifier is required to assist in search and indexing of the document.
When the mention of non-ASCII characters is required for correct protocol operation and understanding, the characters' Unicode character name or code point MUST be included in the text.
Examples:
OLD [RFC7564]:
However, the problem is made more serious by introducing the full range of Unicode code points into protocol strings. For example, the characters U+13DA U+13A2 U+13B5 U+13AC U+13A2 U+13AC U+13D2 from the Cherokee block look similar to the ASCII characters "STPETER" as they might appear when presented using a "creative" font family.
NEW/ALLOWED:
However, the problem is made more serious by introducing the full range of Unicode code points into protocol strings. For example, the characters U+13DA U+13A2 U+13B5 U+13AC U+13A2 U+13AC U+13D2 (ᏚᎢᎵᎬᎢᎬᏒ) from the Cherokee block look similar to the ASCII characters "STPETER" as they might appear when presented using a "creative" font family.
ALSO ACCEPTABLE:
However, the problem is made more serious by introducing the full range of Unicode code points into protocol strings. For example, the characters "ᏚᎢᎵᎬᎢᎬᏒ" (U+13DA U+13A2 U+13B5 U+13AC U+13A2 U+13AC U+13D2) from the Cherokee block look similar to the ASCII characters "STPETER" as they might appear when presented using a "creative" font family.
Example of proper identification of Unicode characters in an RFC:
Acceptable:
Preferred:
Which option of (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), or (6) is preferred may depend on context and the specific character(s) in question. All are acceptable within an RFC. BCP 137, "ASCII Escaping of Unicode Character" describes the pros and cons of different options for identifying Unicode characters in an ASCII document BCP137 [RFC5137].
Tables follow the same rules for identifiers and characters as in "Section 3.4. Body of the document". If it is sensible (i.e., more understandable for a reader) for a given document to have two tables -- one including the identifiers and non-ASCII characters and a second with just the non-ASCII characters -- that will be allowed on a case-by-case basis.
Original text from "Preparation, Enforcement, and Comparison of Internationalized Strings Representing Usernames and Passwords" [RFC7613].
Table 3: A sample of legal passwords
+------------------------------------+------------------------------+
| # | Password | Notes |
+------------------------------------+------------------------------+
| 12| <correct horse battery staple> | ASCII space is allowed |
+------------------------------------+------------------------------+
| 13| <Correct Horse Battery Staple> | Different from example 12 |
+------------------------------------+------------------------------+
| 14| <πßå> | Non-ASCII letters are OK |
| | | (e.g., GREEK SMALL LETTER |
| | | PI, U+03C0) |
+------------------------------------+------------------------------+
| 15| <Jack of ♦s> | Symbols are OK (e.g., BLACK |
| | | DIAMOND SUIT, U+2666) |
+------------------------------------+------------------------------+
| 16| <foo bar> | OGHAM SPACE MARK, U+1680, is |
| | | mapped to U+0020 and thus |
| | | the full string is mapped to |
| | | <foo bar> |
+------------------------------------+------------------------------+
Preferred text:
Table 3: A sample of legal passwords
+------------------------------------+------------------------------+
| # | Password | Notes |
+------------------------------------+------------------------------+
| 12| <correct horse battery staple> | ASCII space is allowed |
+------------------------------------+------------------------------+
| 13| <Correct Horse Battery Staple> | Different from example 12 |
+------------------------------------+------------------------------+
| 14| <πß๗> | Non-ASCII letters are OK |
| | | (e.g., GREEK SMALL LETTER |
| | | PI, U+03C0; LATIN SMALL |
| | | LETTER SHARP S, U+00DF; THAI |
| | | DIGIT SEVEN, U+0E57) |
+------------------------------------+------------------------------+
| 15| <Jack of ♦s> | Symbols are OK (e.g., BLACK |
| | | DIAMOND SUIT, U+2666) |
+------------------------------------+------------------------------+
| 16| <foo bar> | OGHAM SPACE MARK, U+1680, is |
| | | mapped to U+0020 and thus |
| | | the full string is mapped to |
| | | <foo bar> |
+------------------------------------+------------------------------+
The RFC Editor encourages the use of the U+ notation except within a code component where you must follow the rules of the programming language in which you are writing the code.
The reference entry must be in English; whatever subfields are present must be available in ASCII-encoded characters. As long as good sense is used, the reference entry may also include non-ASCII characters at the author's discretion and as provided by the author. The RFC Editor may request a review of the non-ASCII reference entry. This applies to both normative and informative references.
Example:
[GOST3410] "Information technology. Cryptographic data security.
Signature and verification processes of [electronic]
digital signature.", GOST R 34.10-2001, Gosudarstvennyi
Standard of Russian Federation, Government Committee of
Russia for Standards, 2001. (In Russian)
Allowable addition to the above citation:
"Информационная технология. Криптографическая защита
информации. Процессы формирования и проверки
электронной цифровой подписи", GOST R 34.10-2001,
Государственный стандарт Российской Федерации, 2001.
Keywords and citation tags must be ASCII only.
The purpose of providing address information, either postal or e-mail, is to assist readers of an RFC to contact the author or authors. Authors may include the official postal address as recognized by their company or local postal service without additional non-ASCII character escapes. If the email address includes non-ASCII characters and is a valid email address at the time of publication, non-ASCII character escapes are not required.
Authors should not expect normalization forms to be preserved. If a particular normalization form is expected, note that in the text of the RFC.
As described above, use of non-ASCII characters in areas such as email, company name, addresses, and name is allowed. In order to make it easier for code to identify the appropriate ASCII alternatives, authors must include an "ascii" attribute to their XML markup. See [I-D.hoffman-xml2rfc] for more detail.
This document makes no request of IANA.
Note to RFC Editor: this section may be removed on publication as an RFC.
The ability to use non-ASCII characters in RFCs in a clear and consistent manner will improve the ability to describe internationalized protocols and will recognize the diversity of authors. However, the goal of readability will override the use of non-ASCII characters within the text.
Valid Unicode that matches the expected text must be verified in order to preserve expected behavior and protocol information.
Keywords: expanded section to include citation tags.
Internationalization considerations: reiterated that the use of non-ASCII characters is not automatically guaranteed.
Introduction: added statement regarding document subject to change.
Tables: added example.
Code: removed placeholder for example.
Introduction and Abstract: change to be clearer about what/why non-ASCII characters are being allowed.
XML Markup: section added.
With many thanks to the members of the IAB i18n program and the RFC Format Design Team.