UAX #14 rev. 57, Section 5.1 BA: do EN DASH and FIGURE DASH “not participate” in LB12a, or are they outside its exceptions?

The BA description says these dashes do not participate in rule LB12a, so the no-break space after them stays non-breaking. After the 18.0 change LB12a is the rule that keeps it non-breaking; the outcome is right, but the wording reads as if LB12a did not apply.

Consequence

U+0061 U+2013 U+00A0 U+0062: no break before the no-break space, by LB12a.

Proposed correction

Say “As these characters are not among the exceptions of rule LB12a”.

Issued by

Unicode Consortium — Unicode Technical Committee

Act

UAX #14 revision 57 (Unicode 18.0.0)

Place

Section 5.1, class BA, against LB12a

Record

Question of reading or data

Class

Question of reading or data

Where it arose

The text of the act

Arxo's conclusion

Confirmed

Official text

Unchanged at last check

Last checked

2026-10-31

Evidence

Contradiction within the text. Quotations are verbatim from the official material; translations are ours and marked.

As these characters do not participate in rule LB12a, the non-breaking space following the first EN DASH remains non-breaking in that case, whereas it would become breaking if a hyphen were used.

LB12a Do not break before NBSP and related characters, except after spaces and hyphens.

[^SP HY HH] × GL

How to check it without Arxo's tools

1. Open UAX #14 revision 57 (Unicode 18.0.0), Unicode Consortium and find Section 5.1, class BA, against LB12a; rule LB12a. Compare the text with the quotation above. A copy is kept in this register: 296df5332aefe695-tr14-57.html (SHA-256 296df5332aefe695b4951b511288b118bc6a7b43db7fadfd60f6062096acc7c0, copy of the official file).
2. The finding holds if the quoted passages read as shown and the comparison gives the result stated at the top of this page. If it does not, write to us with the record ID.

How this finding was made

AI agents read the annexes and the data files and compared them; the examples were run through published implementations. An AI coordinator checked each place against the full annex and the trackers, and two further AI models checked the report before filing.

Responsible institutions

• Unicode Consortium — publishes the annex and the Unicode Character Database

Reported to

Responses

No response recorded.

History

1. 2026-10-31Confirmed by Arxo
2. 2026-10-31Entered in the register
3. 2026-10-31Reported to Unicode Consortium (e-mail)

Cite this record

Arxo Law, Arxo Findings Register, ARXO-2026-0469, https://arxo.io/findings/ARXO-2026-0469/ (status as of 2026-10-31). Data: ARXO-2026-0469.json.