> The whole point of accepting the complexity of Unicode is to be able to take a document which stands on its own without external references. What makes you t

> The whole point of accepting the complexity of Unicode is to be able to take a document which stands on its own without external references. What makes you think this is the whole point? I don't believe that "whole point" is actually possible with global human languagues as actually used, nor do I think those behind unicode historically or presently have considered this the "whole point". Do you have any reference suggesting this was meant to be the "whole point" of unicode? I think it's actually a pretty amazing success that unicode does give us algorithms for manipulating text in various ways, that actually work pretty darn well... but yes, they sometimes require locale parameters.