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Conference forty2::mailbus_400

Title:MAILBUS 400 User Forum
Notice:kits 100-109 - Infocenter //www.digital.com/info/messaging
Moderator:IOSG::MARSHALL
Created:Thu Jun 11 1992
Last Modified:Fri Jun 06 1997
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:3210
Total number of notes:9174

3154.0. "National characters in address fields" by JACEK::waldek.rpw.dec.com::agatka::calka (Waldek Calka) Tue Mar 25 1997 09:59

Hi

I'm looking for information on local character set support in X.400 address 
fields. In my case I would be interested in ISO Latin2 support.
I've read NOTED::WORLDWIDE 555.* string and I'm aware of the 
transliteration issues.

Does anyone know if ISO Standards Commitee plans to address the issue (eg 
with UNICODE in address fields)?

Can we build private X.400 network that will properly handle ISO Latin2 
addressing (transliteration will be required only for external traffic)?

Thanks for you help/Waldemar
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3154.1Possible with some trickeryIOSG::MARSHALLTue Mar 25 1997 18:2229
O/R addresses in X.400 (1988 and later, which includes MAILbus 400) systems use
the Teletex character set.  This is a single 8-bit set which supports just about
every character in the ISO Latin-n sets.  It basically works the same as the
Latin sets, using the system of designating/invoking character set repertoires. 
It's just that the default repertoires include non-spacing accents and
diacritical marks which allow you to construct a wide range of characters.

Hence you can use ISO Latin-2 today without any difficulties for transferring
information around an X.400 network.

Your problems arise, however, with getting the data into and out of X.400. 
Most, if not all, end systems don't use Teletex, they use one of the ISO Latin
character sets.  The MTA's management module na�vely assumes that you will
always be using a Latin-1 terminal to input data to the MTA, and so interprets
byte values according to the Latin-1 character set for converting to Teletex.

ALL-IN-1, the largest DIGITAL-produced user agent for MAILbus 400, does have
configurable character set tables, for mapping between Teletex and the
appropriate local character set.  However, the base product ships with only the
Latin-1 tables, and as the product is not translated into any languages that use
Latin-2, the extra tables are not available, either from engineering or the
localisation centre.  Also, they are not site customisable.

But depending on what products you're trying to use, and what you are trying to
achieve, there are a few tricks you can do to get Latin-2 values into the system
(in their Teletex-encoded forms).  If you can explain what you want to do, I'll
try and explain how you can do it.

Scott
3154.2JACEK::waldek.rpw.dec.com::agatka::calkaWaldek CalkaWed Mar 26 1997 09:499
Scott

thank you for your answer; this is the information I was looking 
for. We were asked to express our opinion on proposed 
translitaration standard here in Poland (mainly for e-mail 
exchange). Now I know X.400 handles local characters. The e-mail end 
system is the source of our (non Latin 1 users) problems.

Thank you again/Waldek