Enabling bidirectional support in the XML ODA

The XML ODA has been globalized to handle XML schemas and DTDs that use bidirectional character sets. The XML data handler now also supports bidirectional character encoding formats. To display text from different languages, the XML ODA uses resource files that can be translated into various languages.

To enable this support, the XML ODA relies on the BiDi.Application property to specify the bidirectional format of the XML schema or DTD. The value of BiDi.Application is a sequence of letters specifying various aspects of the format of the bidirectional text. Table 83 defines these letter values.

Table 83. BiDi format specification

Letter position Letter meaning Possible value Default value Meaning
1 Type I I Implicit
V Logical
2 Direction L L Left to right
R Right to left
3 Symmetric swapping Y Y Symmetric swapping on
N Symmetric swapping off
4 Shaping S N Text is shaped
N Text is not shaped
5 Numeric shaping H N Hindi (national)
C Contextual
N Nominal

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