Work during the development of the Integrated Issues Report made obvious the lack of a common IDN tables format and standard implementation, and the need to use a tool to machine-generate sets of variant labels in accordance with formal label generation rules. Currently, different registries use different formats for describing their variant tables.
The Label Generation Ruleset Tool (a.k.a. IDN Table Format) project is meant to develop a standard tool specification and supporting proof-of-concept tools for listing allowed code points and their corresponding variant code points, if any, for a domain name registry. It proposes an XML-based standard for nominating code points and variants, which will ideally represent the future IANA repository format
The community would benefit from the standardization of a table format that would allow software implementers to easily and predictably generate variant labels. Such a table format should be developed with input from potential implementers (registries) and other interested parties, possibly through a technical standards body such as the IETF.
The Label Generation Ruleset Tool format is expected to be useful for any registry implementing variant labels at any level in the DNS tree, and therefore is not specific to variant labels in the DNS root zone. It would also be useful to standardize the tables maintained in the IDN Practices Repository on the IANA website.
For further details on the status of the Label Generation Ruleset Tool project, please see project update presentation below:
