XML and stylesheets

I don't think we want to revisit this whitespace issue after we attack
stylesheets. We are currently defining the input to the stylesheet engine,
so we whould discuss it now. If we presume that most or all occurances of
whitespace in element content will be unlabelled and undifferentiated from
whitespace in mixed content, then only the stylesheet writer can properly
remove source-formatting whitespace. We've said this before, but I want to
make sure that we all have the same understanding.

If I understand correctly, 

 * the stylesheet writer will explicitly have to have a declaration for
every element with an element-content content-model to surpress the whitespace 
 * OR we could make whitespace elimination the default in the stylesheet
language in which case they would have to have an explicit declaration for
every element that has mixed content so that whitespace will not be removed
erroneously
 * OR the author must avoid all whitespace in element content.

The first will make much larger stylesheets, with lots of repetition.

The second will make larger (but perhaps not much larger) stylesheets, but
is incompatible with DSSSL as it exists.

The last is user-hostile.

Have I forgotten any options? Are we satisfied with these ones?

 Paul Prescod

Received on Sunday, 15 December 1996 11:02:18 UTC