RE: RS/RE, again (sorry)

At 02:24 PM 12/13/96 CST, Michael Sperberg-McQueen wrote:
>On Fri, 13 Dec 1996 15:14:05 -0500 Tim Bray said:
>>...leave -XML-SPACE in ... but the
>>processor *always* in all cases passes all the bytes...
>
>Does this mean a validating XML processor should both pass through
>all the bytes (n.b. this *still* isn't all the bytes

Uh, all the bytes that aren't markup.

>...use its knowledge of the DTD to add an
>appropriate -XML-SPACE attribute spec before passing the data to the
>app? 

No; my thinking was that -XML-SPACE was designed for humans to use
in the case that they (a) care about how apps handle whitespace
and (b) don't trust them to do the right thing without help. 

In all cases, the parser hands the app all the non-markup bytes.
In all cases, the app does what it wants; the XML spec obviously
has no normative role as far as apps go.  -XML-SPACE is just a
message from the author to the apps.  This is a good reason why
it's not a PI, which a message to *an* app; -XML-SPACE conveys
information about the document which may be material to any app; 
it is necessary because XML lacks SGML's explicit (if difficult)
rules specifying exactly which whitespace is data and which isn't.

 - Tim

Received on Friday, 13 December 1996 17:07:44 UTC