webwml/chinese/Chinese.README.gb

Some notes and ramblings on Chinese translations (and the fun of
maintaining both Big5 and GB pages and hope that all the characters
show up properly.  :-)

Note: This document may contain GB2312 code.

Content Negotiation:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
        lang                    charset
        ------  ------          -------
        zh-CN   .zh-cn          Big5
        zh-TW   .zh-tw          GB2312


Big5<->GB... Arrgghh!

Big5 is *bad*!!  Its relationship to Unicode is _not_ one-to-one,
and is giving me a lot of headaches.

The following is from
        ftp://ftp.unicode.org/Public/MAPPINGS/EASTASIA/OTHER/BIG5.TXT

#       WARNING!  It is currently impossible to provide round-trip compatibility
#               between BIG5 and Unicode.  
#
#       A number of characters are not currently mapped because
#               of conflicts with other mappings.  They are as follows:
#
#       BIG5        Description                    Comments
#
#       0xA15A      SPACING UNDERSCORE             duplicates A1C4
#       0xA1C3      SPACING HEAVY OVERSCORE        not in Unicode
#       0xA1C5      SPACING HEAVY UNDERSCORE       not in Unicode
#       0xA1FE      LT DIAG UP RIGHT TO LOW LEFT   duplicates A2AC
#       0xA240      LT DIAG UP LEFT TO LOW RIGHT   duplicates A2AD
#       0xA2CC      HANGZHOU NUMERAL TEN           conflicts with A451 mapping
#       0xA2CE      HANGZHOU NUMERAL THIRTY        conflicts with A4CA mapping
#
#       We currently map all of these characters to U+FFFD REPLACEMENT CHARACTER

Another reference is the Big5+ standard tables.  At least it won't
leave any Big5+ codes dangling.  :-)  It does include a Big5+ to GBK
table, but then, we want GB, not GBK.  Hmm...


Converter
~~~~~~~~~
 * Don't bother with tcs.  Due to the traditional/simplified character
   issue, tcs simply doesn't work well at all.

 * utf-converter works but need more tweaking to get everything translated
   properly.


 -- Anthony Fok <foka@debian.org>, Fri, 16 Apr 1999 05:11:03 -0600
1	Some notes and ramblings on Chinese translations (and the fun of
2	maintaining both Big5 and GB pages and hope that all the characters
3	show up properly. :-)
4
5	Note: This document may contain GB2312 code.
6
7	Content Negotiation:
8	~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
9	lang charset
10	------ ------ -------
11	zh-CN .zh-cn Big5
12	zh-TW .zh-tw GB2312
13
14
15	Big5<->GB... Arrgghh!
16
17	Big5 is bad!! Its relationship to Unicode is _not_ one-to-one,
18	and is giving me a lot of headaches.
19
20	The following is from
21	ftp://ftp.unicode.org/Public/MAPPINGS/EASTASIA/OTHER/BIG5.TXT
22
23	# WARNING! It is currently impossible to provide round-trip compatibility
24	# between BIG5 and Unicode.
25	#
26	# A number of characters are not currently mapped because
27	# of conflicts with other mappings. They are as follows:
28	#
29	# BIG5 Description Comments
30	#
31	# 0xA15A SPACING UNDERSCORE duplicates A1C4
32	# 0xA1C3 SPACING HEAVY OVERSCORE not in Unicode
33	# 0xA1C5 SPACING HEAVY UNDERSCORE not in Unicode
34	# 0xA1FE LT DIAG UP RIGHT TO LOW LEFT duplicates A2AC
35	# 0xA240 LT DIAG UP LEFT TO LOW RIGHT duplicates A2AD
36	# 0xA2CC HANGZHOU NUMERAL TEN conflicts with A451 mapping
37	# 0xA2CE HANGZHOU NUMERAL THIRTY conflicts with A4CA mapping
38	#
39	# We currently map all of these characters to U+FFFD REPLACEMENT CHARACTER
40
41	Another reference is the Big5+ standard tables. At least it won't
42	leave any Big5+ codes dangling. :-) It does include a Big5+ to GBK
43	table, but then, we want GB, not GBK. Hmm...
44
45
46	Converter
47	~~~~~~~~~
48	* Don't bother with tcs. Due to the traditional/simplified character
49	issue, tcs simply doesn't work well at all.
50
51	* utf-converter works but need more tweaking to get everything translated
52	properly.
53
54
55	-- Anthony Fok <foka@debian.org>, Fri, 16 Apr 1999 05:11:03 -0600