Registration of New Sequences in MSARG Collection

To: Unicode Consortium

From: Government of Macao Special Administrative Region, China

Action: Request for review

Date: 2020-06-22

Contents

1. Introduction of MSCS
2. Request for Review and Comments
3. Information of the MSARG Collection and Data Files

3.1 Information of the MSARG Collection
3.2 Data Files

4. History

1. Introduction of MSCS

Macao Special Administrative Region Government (MSARG) is in the process of establishing Macao SAR Information Systems Chinese Character Encoding Scheme (hereinafter referred to as the “Scheme”). The Scheme sets up the exchange framework to define characters used in Macao for information processing and exchange. To address the issue of Macao specific characters, the Scheme includes a Macao Supplementary Character Set, abbreviated as MSCS. MSCS-2020 will be used as the information exchange encoding standard among all departments of MSARG.

The Scheme includes the use of three character sets: 1) the Big-5 character set; 2) Hong Kong Supplementary Character Set (HKSCS) - 2008; and 3) Macao Supplementary Character Set (MSCS). The Big-5 character set has been used in Macao since Macao uses the traditional Chinese system. Due to the close connection with Hong Kong SAR, HKSCS characters are also commonly used in Macao and thus should be supported.

Under the ISO/IEC 10646 international encoding standard, the source references of the Scheme are as follows:

MB-hhhh is used to refer to all characters in the Big-5 character set, in which “hhhh” is the hexadecimal Big-5 code. MB0-hhhh, MB1-hhhh, and MB2-hhhh denote symbols, frequently-used ideographs, and less–frequently-used ideographs, respectively, in terms of how they are referenced in ISO/IEC 10646.
MA-hhhh is used to refer to all characters already encoded in HKSCS-2008, in which “hhhh” is the corresponding hexadecimal Big-5 code in HKSCS-2008. HKSCS-2008 is the last version of the HKSCS that was published with Big-5 code points.
MC-nnnnn is used for characters vertically extended to ISO/IEC 10646, in which “nnnnn” is an MSCS-assigned source reference code between 00001 and 99999, and assigned in sequence.
MD-hhhh[h] is used for characters horizontally extended to ISO/IEC 10646, in which “hhhh[h]” is the four- or five-digit hexadecimal code of the character in the ISO/IEC 10646 international standard. For characters in the Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP or Plane 0), four hexadecimal digits are used. For characters in other planes, five hexadecimal digits are used. HKSCS-2016, the latest version of HKSCS, includes 23 ideographs and one symbol horizontally extended to ISO/IEC 10646. Since MSCS also needs to horizontally extend these characters, MDH-hhhh[h] is used as the source reference for these characters to differentiate them from other horizontally-extended characters proposed by MSARG.
ME-hhhh[h]-nnn is used for character variants with registered IVSes, in which “hhhh[h]” is the four- or five-digit hexadecimal code of the base character in ISO/IEC 10646, and “nnn” is an MSCS-assigned number between 001 and 999. For variants that share the same base character, “nnn” is assigned in sequence.

MSCS includes the following three parts: 1) MSARG’s Vertical Extension to ISO/IEC 10646 (source reference: MC-nnnnn); 2) MSARG’s Horizontal Extension to ISO/IEC 10646 (source reference: MA-hhhh, MB-hhhh, MD-hhhh[h]); and 3) Macao’s variants with registered IVSes (source reference: ME-hhhh[h]-nnn).

2. Request for Review and Comments

In the 2016-08-15 version of the IVD, 11 variants and 10 base characters were registered, along with the MSARG IVD collection itself. The pattern for the sequence identifiers is M([AB]_[0-9A-F]{4}|C_[0-9]{5}|D_[0-9A-F]{4,5}|E_[0-9A-F]{4,5}_[0-9]{3}). The format of the sequence identifiers differs slightly from their source reference: 1) The sequence identifiers use underscores in lieu of hyphens per Section 3 of UTS #37; and 2) for the base characters in Big-5, MB is used, and not further distinguished as MB1 or MB2.

This submission includes 133 proposed new sequences (65 base characters and 68 variants) to be added to the registered MSARG IVD collection. All of the variants are included in MSCS-2020. Some base characters are in MSCS-2020 proper, but some are also in Big-5 and HKSCS.

MSARG kindly requests the IVD Registrar and experts to review these proposed sequences and their representative glyphs.

The following table lists the information of the 133 proposed sequences as well as the 21 sequences registered in the 2016-08-15 version of the IVD:

Status	Number		Remarks
Status	Base Character	Variant	Remarks
Registered in 2016	10	11
To be registered	65	68	Pattern for the sequence identifiers is unchanged.
Total	75	79

3. Information of the MSARG Collection and Data Files

3.1 Information of the MSARG Collection

Macao’s IVD named “MSARG collection” was registered in 2016 and the information is as follows:

Name and address of the registrant:	Public Administration and Civil Service Bureau (SAFP) Macao Special Administrative Region, China Rua do Campo, no. 162, EdificioAdministracao Publica, 21-27 Andares, Macau
Name and email address of the representative:	Mr. Chau Cheuk Kwan, Clement: cchau@safp.gov.mo Ms. Cheang Pui Pui: ppcheang@safp.gov.mo
URL of the web site describing the collection:	http://www.iso10646hk.net/ivd/MSARG/ (This is a temporary web site and it will be changed to another web site in the future.)
Suggested identifier for the collection:	MSARG
Pattern for the sequence identifiers:	M([AB]_[0-9A-F]{4}\|C_[0-9]{5}\|D_[0-9A-F]{4,5}\|E_[0-9A-F]{4,5}_[0-9]{3})

3.2 Data Files

Three data files of the 133 proposed sequences are available at:

Description of the collection: IVD_Collections_MSARG.txt (The same as that registered in 2016.)

The format of this file conforms to the requirements specified in Section 3 of Unicode Technical Standard #37.

List of the proposed sequences: IVD_Sequences_MSARG_2020.txt

The format of this file conforms to the requirements specified in Sections 3 and 4.2 of Unicode Technical Standard #37.

List of the representative glyphs for the proposed sequences: Glyphs_List_MSARG_2020.pdf

4. History

2020-06-08 First publication.

2020-06-22 Two sequences were added based on the accumulated feedback for IRG N2430:

8B67; MSARG; MB_F4D4

8B67; MSARG; ME_8B67_001