# Accented variables

From: Pepping, Simon (ELS) <S.Pepping@elsevier.nl>
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2003 13:00:39 +0100
Message-ID: <4D56BD81F62EFD49A74B1057ECD75C06068E7A5E@elsamsvexch01.elsevier.nl>
To: "'MathML list'" <www-math@w3.org>

In TeX there are specific accents for math: \tilde A etc. In MathML there
does not seem to be such a thing. The msup, mover etc. constructs are much
less specific and much more variable: for example, some people may use
&sim;, others may use &tilde;, for the tilde accent. They seem to encode the
idea that one may use any character as a superior to or over another
character. For the well-known math accents that is not appropriate; one
would like to use specific accent characters.

Is there a specific or recommended set of characters which are suitable for
accents on math variables? The symbols in the entities file isodia.ent
http://www.w3.org/TR/MathML2/isodia.html may be a good candidate set. But
they are all spacing accents, which by themselves are already higher and
smaller than a normal character. This situation seems to be identical to the
prime, discussed on this list:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-math/2002Nov/0024.html.

As an extreme example, &dot; is dot above. Using it in an munder would not
seem appropriate:
<mml:munder>
<mml:mi>A</mml:mi>
<mml:mi>&dot;</mml:mi>
</mml:munder>
In fact, it works nicely in MathPlayer and Mozilla.

Simon Pepping
DTD Development and Maintenance
Elsevier
s.pepping@elsevier.com
www.elsevier.com/locate/sgml

Received on Friday, 25 July 2003 08:10:07 UTC

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