???XML vs SGML for unicode support???

[krammer]

Hello,

Can any one please give me a short but concise pros and cons list of
Unicode support in both SGML and XML?

long story short, we are gonna port our leagacy SGML files to XML and
the new XML files will have foreign (CJK) and Ascii/English in them.

XML would be better to store the text in cuase it has better Unicode
support than SGML right???? what are these advantages that XML has
over SGML besides the default encoing for XML is unicode and SGML is
not unicode?

We gotta backup our move to XML with some reasons for management.

Any thouhgts on the pros and cons of SGML and XML when it comes to
Unicode support would be much appreciated!

thanks

krammer

 

[Patrick TJ McPhee]

% Can any one please give me a short but concise pros and cons list of
% Unicode support in both SGML and XML?

The only real advantage of XML in this regard is that you know unicode
is going to be present in any parser you use, because it's a required
part of the language. With SGML, I'd think any recent parser will also
give you unicode support, and once you've got a parser that works, the
problem is solved and you can get on with your life.

XML stripped a lot of flexibility and user-convenience features out of
SGML, which makes it easier to write correct parsers, as well as to
write tools which can process data without intimate regard for its
structure. This may be an argument if you're spending a lot of time
developing special-purpose tools for each of your data formats, or
something like that.

I assume that the biggest problem you're having right now is dealing
with non-ascii data, in which case I'd justify the change by by showing
that you need to make a change in any case. Your current programs can't
handle your data, so you either have to replace your current SGML
programs with new SGML programs that can handle unicode data, or you
need to replace them with a new data representation and programs that
handle it. You then show that the approach you want to take is the
lower-cost one, or the one that will give you greater flexibility,
or you discover that it's not the right approach.