Re: RS/RE: basic questions

On Fri, 20 Sep 96 10:53:46 CDT, Michael Sperberg-McQueen
<U35395@UICVM.CC.UIC.EDU> wrote:

>On Thu, 19 Sep 1996 23:23:03 -0400 Liam Quin said:
>>    <p>Listen to my heart beat.
>>    <?DIRECTOR: audio on>
>>    And beat and beat and beat.</p>
>>
>>If the required form of this in XML were either
>>
>><p>Listen to my heart beat.<?DIRECTOR: audio on>
>>And beat and beat and beat.</p>
>>
>>or
>>
>><p>Listen to my heart beat.
>><?DIRECTOR: audio on>And beat and beat and beat.</p>
>>
>>then both SGML and XML would parse the document in the same way, no?
>
>Or even
>
>     <p>Listen to my heart beat.
>     <?DIRECTOR: audio on
>     >And beat and beat and beat.</p>
>
>I find it just as hard to explain to users why some newlines disappear
>as some people seem to find it hard to explain that a newline in
>character data is character data.  Actually, a lot harder, since to
>this day I wouldn't claim to be able to tell accurately whether a
>newline is actually ignored or not, in any case except the simple one
>(newline immediately after start-tag or immediately before end-tag),
>without running a test through SP or sgmls first.  Which means I *can't*
>explain it, 'cause I don't understand it.
>
>Can someone actually explain the RE rules here, in terms *not* those
>used in the relevant clause of 8879?  (If I understood it in those
>terms I wouldn't have this problem.)
>
>Michael Sperberg-McQueen
>
There's only ever been one rule: An RE that exists only because of markup is
ignored. (It's the application of the rule that causes confusion.)

If we delimit pseudo-elements, then the rule is: undelimited REs are ignored,
delimited ones are data.
--
Charles F. Goldfarb * Information Management Consulting * +1(408)867-5553
           13075 Paramount Drive * Saratoga CA 95070 * USA
  International Standards Editor * ISO 8879 SGML * ISO/IEC 10744 HyTime
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--

Received on Sunday, 22 September 1996 16:25:20 UTC