Unicode Explained

XML document is sent with a MIME or HTTP header specifying that media type and

without a charset parameter, the recipient must imply that the encoding is US-ASCII.

In practice, the default encoding that a browser uses for a page (when the server or the

page itself does not specify the encoding) depends on the browser. The default has often

been selected to suit the cultural environment where the browser is used. In any case,

if the user has selected the encoding manually, this setting will usually stay in effect as

a default.

The moral is, of course, that an author should try to make the web server send a header

that specifies the encoding, even if it is ISO-8859-1. If the encoding is UTF-8, there is

an even greater reason for specifying it in an HTTP header, of course.

Checking the HTTP headers

In order to check the HTTP headers sent by a server, you can use a Telnet program or

some similar software. Unfortunately, the Telnet program included in Windows is very

simple, but there is, for example, the free PuTTY program, which is distributed as a

binary executable via http://www.putty.nl/.

Using PuTTY (or Telnet), connect to the server using the applicable port, which is

normally 80 for HTTP and can be obtained from the URL if not. (If the server name in

the URL is followed by a colon and a number, the number is the port number to be

used.) Then you issue a HEAD command and a HOST command and an ...