[mkgmap-dev] character repertoires

Mon Feb 25 23:09:33 GMT 2013

Steve,

digging through your code a little, I stumbled upon the forceUppercase()
method and traced its initialzation back to the --lower-case command
line option.
I had the impression that this option was considered useless, but I
tried it nevertheless to see for myself: on the contrary!
Perhaps for the first time ever, I see a proper “ß” on a Garmin.
Since until only recently¹ this German character did not have any upper
case counterpart, it could only be transliterated to SS and so I always
see streets ending in -strasse instead of -straße everywhere on Garmins.
It always feels like Swiss German (who abandoned the ß long ago).

¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_%E1%BA%9E

> > The micro sign U+00B5 μ becomes a ? on most code page maps, except for
> > the Greek one, even though it is at the same position in all code pages.
> 
> U+00b5 is upper cased to GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU, which is only present
> in the Greek code page.

With --lower-case, I now also get the μ micro sign all over, not just in
the Greek code page.

I guess … --code-page=1250 --lower-case … will become my favorite
options. ;-)

> > And in the Arabic map’s upper half, the latin based characters show up
> > as “?”.
> 
> That's because only lower case characters are included.

With --lower-case, the accented latin characters work fine in the Arabic
map.

Given these results, I’d like to ask you to reconsider your proposed
action to remove the --lower-case option and code.
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Mkgmap/dev/option-review

I got the impression that it _does_ work, and I enjoy the effect very
much so far.

> > Another peculiar thing: while the Garmin does its usual wierd
> > upper/lower casing, TWO LABELS ARE ALL CAPS, namely those containing
> > the ª feminine and º masculine ordinal indicators.
> 
> I don't know about this. Possibly a device thing?

I guess I’ve got a lead on this.
With --lower-case,
the input label “62 0062 b LATIN SMALL LETTER B” shows up the same on
the Garmin, whereas
the input label
“42 0042 B LATIN CAPITAL LETTER B” shows up as
“42 0042 B Latin Capital Letter B” on the Garmin,
i.e. partially lower-cased.

My theory:
• when the Garmin sees all upper case characters in a label, it folds
  the case into title caps style
• when the Garmin sees a lower case character in a label, it leaves the
  label characters’ case as-is.

With this theory, it probably considered the ª and º characters as lower
case.

rj