SC22/WG20 N607.txt ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG14 N857 Title: Liaison statement from WG14 to WG20 Date: 1998-10-08 Status: approved by WG14 Source: SC22/WG14 The C standard that WG14 has produced can be implemented with any character set, as long as it includes the basic character set (some 94 characters which are essentially ISO/IEC 646). WG14 recommends that products should be able to conform to the WG20 standards for any such character set as the native coded character set. This is a requirement for WG14 to be able to use WG20 standards, such as the 14651 sorting standard, the 14652 cultural conventions specification standard, and the 15435 internationalization APIs standard. The C standard uses a locale model where all of the categories are changeable by the user. This also includes character attributes, such as whether a character is considered alphabetic or a special character. For example, the Greek beta could be considered a letter or a special character dependent on the locale. WG14 recommends that products should be able to conform to the WG20 standards with such variation of the attributes of characters. This is a requirement for WG14 to be able to use WG20 standards. WG14 is happy to say that some WG14 experts are interested in participating in the development of the 15435 i18n APIs standard, especially in the area of the C binding specification.