Documentation Center

XMetaL Author behavior when converting data outside the range of ISO-8859-1

If there is a character in the data that is outside the ISO-8859-1 character range, XMetaL Author detects it and does not save it as ISO encoded data.

For example:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?>
<DATA>
<character>(30) 0 The number zero</character>
<character>(41) A Capital letter A</character>
<character>(C2 A5) ¥ YEN SIGN</character>
<character>(C2 BF) ¿ INVERTED QUESTION MARK</character>
<character>(C3 9F) ß LATIN SMALL LETTER SHARP S</character>
<character>(C3 A6) æ LATIN SMALL LIGATURE AE</character>
<character>(C3 BF) ÿ LATIN SMALL LETTER Y WITH DIAERESIS</character>
<character>(D1 89) ? CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER</character>
</DATA>

In the example above, the (D1 89) ? CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER was added to the XML instance. This is a Cyrillic character that is represented by two bytes and is not part of the ISO- 8859-1 character set.

XMetaL Author displays the data correctly even though the character is outside the ISO range because it detects the actual encoding is UTF-8. When you save it, XMetaL Author indicates that it is going to convert the data from UTF-8 to ISO-8859-1 because that is what the declaration indicates.

If you select Yes and there is a character outside the range, XMetaL Author does not actually save it. There is no indication that the data was not saved.

If you want to save the modifications made to the file, you must select No in the dialog box and save the data encoded as UTF-8.