Re: space (reply again, sorry)
Chris Lilley (Chris.Lilley@sophia.inria.fr)
Wed, 25 Sep 1996 13:43:18 +0200 (DST)
Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 13:43:18 +0200 (DST)
From: Chris Lilley <Chris.Lilley@sophia.inria.fr>
Message-Id: <9609251343.ZM12067@grommit.inria.fr>
In-Reply-To: bosak@atlantic-83.Eng.Sun.COM (Jon Bosak)
To: bosak@atlantic-83.Eng.Sun.COM (Jon Bosak), msftrncs@htcnet.com,
Subject: Re: space (reply again, sorry)
Cc: www-html@w3.org, boo@best.com
On Sep 21, 11:51pm, Jon Bosak wrote:
> Code point 10/00 (decimal 160) is called NO-BREAK SPACE in ISO 8859-1
> (Latin Alphabet No. 1). It is defined as follows:
>
> 6.3.2 NO-BREAK SPACE (NBSP)
>
> A graphic character the visual representation of which consists of
> the absence of a graphic symbol, for use when a line break is to
> be prevented in the text as presented.
Acording to that definition, Hello There could be validly presented as
HelloThere. That has an absence of a graphical symbol and does not have a
linebreak. The text as quoted does not say that the writing position is
advanced or describe any other space-like properties.
It reads, infact, rather like a zero-width joining character, or something that
might supress automatic hyphenation. Autocalibration might be presented as
text text Auto-
calibration
but Auto calibration would be presented as
text text
Autocalibration
However, this is not what I and I guess most people assume is meant by a
non-breaking space. What I understand is:
1) it looks like a space (same width of space, etc
2) consecutive nbsp are not folded into one
3) you don't get a line break there
Given the official ISO definition quoted above, I can cite no
supporting evidence for two of those three assumptions....
--
Chris Lilley, W3C [ http://www.w3.org/ ]
Graphics and Fonts Guy The World Wide Web Consortium
http://www.w3.org/people/chris/ INRIA, Projet W3C
chris@w3.org 2004 Rt des Lucioles / BP 93
+33 93 65 79 87 06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex, France