Network Working Group J. Snell
Internet-Draft April 11, 2008
Updates: 4287 (if approved)
Intended status: Experimental
Expires: October 13, 2008
Atom Bidirectional Attribute
draft-snell-atompub-bidi-06.txt
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Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The IETF Trust (2008).
Abstract
This document adds a new attribute to the Atom Syndication Format
used to indicate the base directionality of directionally-neutral
characters.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1. Namespace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2. Notational Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. The "dir" Attribute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1. Direction Guessing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
5. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
5.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
5.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Appendix A. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . . . 8
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1. Introduction
This document updates the Atom Syndication Format [RFC4287] by adding
a new "dir" attribute used to define the base directionality of
directionally-neutral characters contained within an Atom document.
Marking bidirectional text using the mechanism defined in this
specification is currently considered to be experimental.
Implementation and feedback are encouraged.
1.1. Namespace
The XML Namespaces URI [W3C.REC-xml-names-19990114] for the Atom
Syndication Format [RFC4287] is:
http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom
1.2. Notational Conventions
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14, [RFC2119].
The Atom Syndication Format [RFC4287] is specified using terms from
the XML Infoset [W3C.REC-xml-infoset-20040204]. This specification
uses a shorthand form for two commons terms: The phrase "Information
Item" is omitted when naming Element and Attribute Information Items.
Therefore, when this specification uses the term "element," it is
referring to an Element Information Item in Infoset terms. Likewise,
when it uses the term "attribute," it is referring to an Attribute
Information Item.
Portions this specification are illustrated with fragments of a non-
normative RELAX NG Compact schema [RELAXNG]. However, the text of
this specification provides the sole definition of conformance.
2. The "dir" Attribute
The "dir" attribute specifies the base direction of directionally-
neutral text [ISO10646] in an Atom document. Possible values for the
attribute are "ltr" and "rtl" indicating "left-to-right" and "right-
to-left" respectively, or an empty string indicating that no base-
direction is specified. If a dir attribute is not provided, the
value MUST be assumed to be an empty string. The attribute can
appear on any element in an Atom document.
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atomCommonAttributes =
attribute xml:base { atomUri }?,
attribute xml:lang { atomLanguageTag }?,
attribute dir { "ltr" | "rtl" | "" }?,
undefinedAttribute*
The direction specified by "dir" applies to elements and attributes
whose values are specified as being "Language-Sensitive" as defined
by Section 2 of [RFC4287]. The direction specified by the attribute
is inherited by descendant elements and attributes and may be
overridden.
Values other than "ltr", "rtl" and "" MUST be ignored and processed
as if the dir attribute was not present; Atom processors MUST NOT
stop processing or signal an error. The value of the attribute is
not case-sensitive.
Example atom:feed with right-to-left directionality
ٹٺٻ
...
If an Atom document contains bidirectional text, the Unicode
Bidirectional Algorithm [UAX9] SHOULD be used to render that text.
Because consumers of Atom documents vary broadly in the way they
display text, the "ltr" and "rtl" values do not necessarily open an
additional level of embedding or override with respect to the
bidirectional algorithm. Consuming applications that render
bidirectional text are responsible for determining the appropriate
level of embedding. If the dir attribute value is "rtl", Atom
processors that display affected text MAY choose to right-align that
text as per the rules described in Section 8 of
[W3C.REC-html401-19991224].
When Atom Text Constructs or the atom:content elements contain
bidirectional text and the type attribute value is either "html" or
"xhtml", the bidirectional markup mechanisms specific to each format
SHOULD be used. The value of the "dir" attribute does define the
base directionality of Language-Sensitive text within Text Constructs
and atom:content elements regardless of the value of the type
attribute.
Example atom:feed with bidirectional XHTML:
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...
...
Unicode bidirectional control characters MAY also be used within
attributes and element values to indicate the directionality of text
or to modify the default operation of the Bidirectional Algorithm.
Implementers are reminded that unexpected results could occur when
using both the "dir" attribute and the Unicode control characters
within a single document.
2.1. Direction Guessing
In Atom documents that do not contain a "dir" attribute, it is
possible to apply heuristics to guess the base directionality of text
in the document. Such heuristics can take into consideration the in-
scope language context established by the use of the xml:lang
attribute or an analysis of the directional properties of the Unicode
characters used within the text. Such guessing algorithms can
produce reasonably acceptable results in many cases but cannot be
guaranteed to produce correct results in every case. For this
reason, explicit determination of text direction using the "dir"
attribute is preferred over any guessing algorithm.
For compatibility with existing Atom documents that rely on direction
guessing, user agents MAY perform direction guessing in documents
that do not contain a "dir" attribute but they SHOULD NOT do so when
an in-scope "dir" attribute is provided.
3. Security Considerations
The security considerations discussed in [RFC4287] Section 8 apply.
4. IANA Considerations
No IANA actions are required by this document.
5. References
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5.1. Normative References
[ISO10646]
International Organization for Standardization, "ISO/IEC
10646:2003: Information Technology - Universal Multiple-
Octet Coded Character Set (UCS)", December 2003.
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC4287] Nottingham, M., Ed. and R. Sayre, Ed., "The Atom
Syndication Format", RFC 4287, December 2005.
[UAX9] Davis, M., "Unicode Standard Annex #9: The Bidirectional
Algorithm", September 2006.
[W3C.REC-xml-infoset-20040204]
Cowan, J. and R. Tobin, "XML Information Set (Second
Edition)", World Wide Web Consortium Recommendation REC-
xml-infoset-20040204, February 2004,
.
[W3C.REC-xml-names-19990114]
Layman, A., Bray, T., and D. Hollander, "Namespaces in
XML", World Wide Web Consortium FirstEdition REC-xml-
names-19990114, January 1999,
.
5.2. Informative References
[RELAXNG] Clark, J., "RELAX NG Compact Syntax", December 2001,
.
[W3C.REC-html401-19991224]
Jacobs, I., Raggett, D., and A. Hors, "HTML 4.01
Specification", World Wide Web Consortium
Recommendation REC-html401-19991224, December 1999,
.
Appendix A. Acknowledgements
The author gratefully acknowledges the feedback from the Atom
Publishing Format and Protocol Working Group.
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Author's Address
James M Snell
Email: jasnell@gmail.com
URI: http://www.snellspace.com
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