Subj : Default Character Set when none is defined
To : Scott Street
From : Rob Swindell
Date : Tue Jun 03 2025 05:16 pm
Re: Default Character Set when none is defined
By: Scott Street to All on Tue Jun 03 2025 09:45 am
> -cringe-). Though, more to the specific question: what character set does
> one use as a default when one is not defined?
>
> Do I use ASCII, CP437, CP850, or something else? (I'm in the US, so gut
> reaction is to use CP437) But is that the right choice?
Here's what FTS-5003 says about that:
Incoming messages without "CHRS" control lines should be considered
as being written in pure ASCII, but may be treated as being written
in some default character set or character encoding scheme. Such as
IBM codepage 437, IBM codepage 866 or UTF-8. It is recommended that
message readers offer the user the option of manually selecting a
different character set or encoding scheme for these messages on a
per-area, per-message or other basis.
For Synchronet, CP437 is assumed when no other character set/encoding is explicitly specified.
> Secondly, FTS documents suggest that the character set is to applied to the
> body and header portions of the message, does that include the kludge
> lines? I'm currently handling them separately as 'ascii'; which given the
> history of Fidonet, I chose as the more likely answer.
Interesting question. Are you actually finding non-ASCIi chars in kludge lines? I'd be curious what those are (the kludge lines/values).
> And if a different echo is more proper, please point me in that direction
> and I'll continue the discuss there.
Maybe FTSC_PUBLIC would be more appropriate for FTN development questions. I seem to recall a NET_DEV echo too, though I don't think it gets much participation.
