Document Number: J4/02-0248
November 20, 2002
Page 1 of 2
Defect Report Response D-5 (for 02-0128)
Subject:
Multiple Currency Strings
Author:
Charles C. Stevens
References in Document:
1.
02-0128 Multiple Currency Strings (Jones)
2.
BSR ISO/IEC 1989:200x
Submitter:
Robert Jones (robert
@
jones0086.freeserve.co.uk)
Nature of defect:
The “12.2.6, SPECIAL-NAMES paragraph” provides the facility to specify several
currency signs for both alphanumeric and national coded character sets.
However, it does not specify the consequence of literal-7 being specified more
than once. While SR22 specifies that “No two occurrences of literal-8 may be
the same value”, there is no similar statement for literal-7 in SR18.
Solution proposed by submitter:
I think that there should be such a sentence in SR18 that distinguishes between
alphanumeric and national characters, but as an alternate solution, there could
be a general rule specifying that when an individual value for literal-7 is specified
more than once, the last encountered value is the one that is used.
The 1985 standard and its two amendments only allowed one CURRENCY SIGN
clause, so there would be no incompatibility problems whichever of these
approaches is followed.
Discussion at Meeting #238:
J4 agrees that the current rules are ambiguous.
Document Number: J4/02-0248
November 20, 2002
Page 2 of 2
Given that the “currency sign” is the visible version to which a “picture symbol”
maps, a “picture symbol” -- whether provided as literal-7 or as literal-8 – must
map uniquely to a single “currency sign” string.
Stated another way, a given picture symbol cannot map to more than one
currency sign.
Changes needed:
The following changes to the standard are needed:
On Page 198, 12.2.6.2, SPECIAL-NAMES paragraph, change SR18 in part to
read “ … not a figurative constant. No two occurrences of literal-7 may be the
same value.”
