CSS Validator and blank lines at top of page

In TopStyle, the user can pass the style sheet they're currently editing
to the W3C CSS Validator.  The results of the validation are then shown
in the user's default browser.

I'm wanting to improve this in the next version so that the validator's
output shows within TopStyle, and users can simply click a hyperlink to
synchronize the editor with the line number shown by the validator.  We
have this (mostly) working with the HTML validator (see
http://www.bradsoft.com/ts3htmval.gif ), but have run into a problem
with the CSS validator.

Apparently, the validator strips white space from the top of style
sheets, so line numbers shown by the validator don't always correspond
to the actual style sheet.  For example, if the style sheet has three
blank lines at the top, the validator shows line numbers that are off by
three.

Although we can certainly compensate for this in our code, there's
obviously a risk that the validator will change this behavior.  So...I
guess the question is, is this something that is considered a "known
problem," and if so, is it likely to be corrected in the near future?

Also, my understanding is that the developers of the W3C HTML validator
are working on Earl/XML output.  Any similar plans for the CSS
validator?

Thanks,
---
Nick Bradbury
TopStyle CSS/HTML/XHTML Editor
http://www.bradsoft.com/

Received on Saturday, 28 September 2002 15:17:11 UTC