XML Draft Section 2.8

`At 12:27 AM 11/16/96 EST, lee@sq.com wrote:
>> Section 2.8: 
>>    This section is really quite distasteful.
>I agree.
>
>The statement
>    In elment content, all white space (S) is ignored
>seems a little odd to me!
>    <P>This is odd</P>
>    <P>Thisisodd</P>
>are the same?
>
>Or is "element content" being used in the SGML sense?

It is defined in 3.2.2. There is one spot where it seems to be used in a
different sense though, 3.1. You are right, there should probably be a
forward reference to the definition in 2.8.

>In COLLAPSE mode,
><P><!--* this is a comment *-->
><E>
>is the same as
><P>
><E>
>but if there is an SGML parser, we get
><P><E>
>(right?)
>
>I don't think this will help interoperability.

I don't think that there is a system that is simpler than SGML which is also
100% interoperable with SGML tools. Making all REs significant certainly
wouldn't. Some SGML tools use them to format output to make it more human
readable (and I like that!!!).

>All white space should be retained at the parser level in XML,
>at least ouside of a DTD.  Inside a DTD I'd really hate it if a
>parser included the S nonterminal in parse trees!

What if you are using XML documents to create DTDs (as has been agreed is
reasonable)? The exact same problem afflicts people creating instance
parsers as it does those working with DTDs. Some whitespace is only meant to
format. If I were XML tagging this document, I would put <LEE> and <PAUL>
tags around our respective content, but I would still leave a blank line
between your contributions and mine for readability.

 Paul Prescod
---
Boycott Shell Oil worldwide!  http://www.web.apc.org/embargo/shell.htm    

"Shell is here on trial and it is as well that it is represented by counsel
said to be holding a watching brief."..."The ecological war that the Company
has waged in the Delta will be called to question sooner than later." -Ken
Saro-Wiwa to the tribunal that later executed him.
http://www.goldmanprize.org/goldman/ken.html

Received on Saturday, 16 November 1996 04:36:09 UTC