Re: [xsl] How to convert XML doc from UTF-8 to ISO-8859-1 char encoding?

["G. Ken Holman" <gkholman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 2010-01-11 15:30 +0100, Ben Stover wrote:
> Assume I have a XML doc which is UTF-8 encoded.
>
> Can I convert it somehow to ISO-8859-1 encoding?

You can create a new document using XSLT, copying
the nodes, reconstituting the document using the
new encoding (if your XSLT processor accepts your
request for encoding for the result).

> And how to  encode it the opposite direction?

Same way.

> Normally the encoding is defined in an attribute in the top most <xml> tag.

False.

The XML Declaration at the beginning of XML
documents informs an XML processor about the
syntax of the XML document.  It is not a tag.  It does not have attributes.

The XML Declaration has the same syntax as a
processing instruction, and the parameters of the
declaration borrow the same syntax as attributes,
but the XML Declaration does not show up in the
XPath data model for XML because it isn't data ... it is syntax.

> Is there a way to detect if this declaration is
> true and corresponds with the real encoding in the full XML doc?
> Or if it is faked/misplaced by mistake?

If the encoding used in the document does not
match the encoding implied by the XML Declaration
then at best your XML processor will abend and
report an error, or at worst your XML processor
will not encounter an encoding error and you will
end up with the wrong characters in your data
model for your XML and you won't know they are wrong.

For example, if you have ever seen a capital A
with diaeresis "D" followed by a copyright
symbol, that is because the UTF-8 encoded
copyright symbol has been successfully
interpreted as two ISO-8859-1 characters.  Which
is wrong, but it is not in error in the
ISO-8859-1 encoding, so you get wrong data with no error message.

Character encoding integrity is not the XML
processor's responsibility, but the creator's
responsibility.  The XML processor must take the XML Declaration at face
value.

I hope this helps.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . Ken

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