What does "c14n" mean?

Question

The Canonical XML spec does not explain "c14n". Is it an abbreviation or something?

• Cee-One-Four-En
• Leetspeak for clan

What does it stand for?

Answer 1

c14n is a numerical contraction for canonicalization — there are 14 characters between the c and the n. Numerical contractions are used beyond XML.

Another common numerical contraction is i18n for internationalization.

Answer 2

c14n is the abbreviation of Canonicalization. It is used to make sure that our xml document is in a standard and consistent form.

These kinds of abbreviations are like a commonly seen trend, it basically means that while abbreviating 14 letters were omitted between c and n

The main aim of this is to make sure that semantically similar XML documents should have the same hash or signature.