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Internationalization of XML Current Status

This page summarizes the relationships among specifications, whether they are finished standards or drafts. Below, each title links to the most recent version of a document. For related introductory information, see: Internationalization, Protocol and Meta Format Considerations, XML Essentials.

Completed Work

W3C Recommendations have been reviewed by W3C Members, by software developers, and by other W3C groups and interested parties, and are endorsed by the Director as Web Standards. Learn more about the W3C Recommendation Track.

Group Notes are not standards and do not have the same level of W3C endorsement.

Standards

2007-04-03

Internationalization Tag Set (ITS) Version 1.0

translations · errata

A set of recommendations for data categories that can be mapped to elements and attributes to support the internationalization and localization of marked up content. Implementations are provided for DTDs, XML Schema and Relax NG, and for existing vocabularies like XHTML, DocBook and OpenDocument.
2005-02-15

Character Model for the World Wide Web 1.0: Fundamentals

translations · errata

Architectural Specification building on Unicode to provide authors of specifications, software developers, and content developers with a common reference for interoperable text handling on the World Wide Web.

Group Notes

2011-07-05

Working with Time Zones

This document contains guidelines and best practices for working with time and time zones in applications and document formats.

2009-09-15

Requirements for String Identity Matching and String Indexing

This document was written as the first step towards a character model for W3C specifications. The views expressed have evolved over the intervening years, and the document was re-published purely to preserve the historical record.
2008-11-03

Legacy extended IRIs for XML resource identification

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For historic reasons, some formats have allowed variants of IRIs that are somewhat less restricted in syntax, for example XML system identifiers and W3C XML Schema anyURIs. This document provides a definition and a name (Legacy Extended IRI or LEIRI) for these variants for easy reference.

2008-02-13

Best Practices for XML Internationalization

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Provides a set of guidelines for developing XML documents and schemas that are properly internationalized, aimed at both developers of XML applications and authors of XML content.
2007-05-16

Unicode in XML and other Markup Languages

This document contains guidelines on the use of the Unicode Standard in conjunction with markup languages such as XML.

Drafts

Below are draft documents: Candidate Recommendations, other Working Drafts. Some of these may become Web Standards through the W3C Recommendation Track process. Others may be published as Group Notes or become obsolete specifications.

Candidate Recommendations

2004-11-22

Character Model for the World Wide Web 1.0: Resource Identifiers

Architectural Specification providing authors of specifications, software developers, and content developers with a common reference for the use of resource identifiers building on Unicode.

Other Working Drafts

2006-06-12

Language Tags and Locale Identifiers for the World Wide Web

Describes mechanisms based on BCP 47 for identifying or selecting the language of content or locale preferences used to process information using Web technologies.

2005-10-27

Character Model for the World Wide Web 1.0: Normalization

Architectural Specification providing authors of specifications, software developers, and content developers with a common reference for normalization and string identity matching to improve interoperable text handling on the World Wide Web.

Obsolete Specifications

These specifications have either been superseded by others, or have been abandoned. They remain available for archival purposes, but are not intended to be used.

Retired

2006-05-18

Internationalization and Localization Markup Requirements

When creating schemas (XML Schema, DTD, etc.), it is important to include constructs that meet the needs of content authors dealing with international audiences, and address the needs of the localization community. This document provides a list of key requirements to achieve such a goal.

Resources Developed Outside W3C

The following resources are relevant to this area of work.

Internationalized Resource Identifiers (RFC 3987)

RFC 3987: Internationalization Resource Identifiers defines a new protocol element, the Internationalized Resource Identifier (IRI), as a complement to the Uniform Resource Identifier (URI).

Internet-Draft: BCP 47 (RFC 4646 and RFC 4647)

IETF Best Current Practice 47 describes language tags and language tag matching for cases where it is desirable to indicate the language used in an information object. Comprises two IETF RFCs: RFC 4646 Tags for Identifying Languages and RFC 4647 Matching of Language Tags. The two editors of this best practice participate in the Internationalization Working Group.

Date and Time Formats

Date and Time Formats is a W3C Member Submission that defines a profile of ISO 8601, the International Standard for the representation of dates and times, likely to satisfy most requirements.

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