RE: lynx-dev Conversion of special character codes within anchor tags

[Bruno Prior]

>  ... can you give me one example of when it would be useful and
> > valid to include non-ASCII characters in a URL?
>
> Filenames and fieldnames in French or German,...

And what happens when the URL containing these filenames and fieldnames
passes through a network which strips the eighth bit? Remember, on the
internet you have very little control over routing. If you have
file/directory names containing non-ASCII characters, it would seem prudent,
if annoying, to alias or link ASCII-only names to them.

As a European, I hate the 7-bit/ASCII restriction, even though, as a Brit, I
am relatively unaffected by it. But we live in the real world, which means
that we have to live with this  restriction.

> Roy Fielding's latest opus on URI syntax was only allowed to go
> forward with the current character restrictions because Larry
> Masinter is hard on its heels with i18n drafts.

It would be great if we could do away with this restriction. Does this mean
that all networks are going to be required to go 8-bit? Or is this old-hat
and they've all gone that way already?

Cheers,


Bruno Prior         address@hidden