Re: [xsl] Initial whitespace in PI from XSLT, main body

Dimitre, how so?

Just because current tools preserve whitespace (in PIs) is no reason you
can't have a rule that says it should not always be assumed to be
persistent, within your data set or processing scope.

There are actually places where this kind of thing matters. For example, I
would not want to assert such a (house) rule over comments, mainly because
if I tolerate comments at all in the data, I had better tolerate line
breaks, pseudo-markup and ASCII art, or I am apt to lose much of the
information in the comments. (Am I not?)

However, having rules about the use and "significance" of whitespace within
markup (indeed within differentiated forms of markup) is so normal as to be
a perennial FAQ.

Cheers, Wendell

On Sun, May 8, 2022 at 12:57 PM Dimitre Novatchev 
dnovatchev(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com <
xsl-list-service(_at_)lists(_dot_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com> wrote:

> > Maybe the solution here is to introduce a new house rule, namely
> whitespace in PIs is never semantically significant,
> > at least without further specification of the PI or family of PIs, and
> hence is fair game for reducing or rewriting.
>
> This will violate the current rules, which eliminate only the leading
> whitespace and leave intact any interim or even trailing whitespace.
>
> Cheers,
> Dimitre
>
> On Sun, May 8, 2022 at 6:46 AM Wendell Piez wapiez(_at_)wendellpiez(_dot_)com 
> <
> xsl-list-service(_at_)lists(_dot_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com> wrote:
>
> > Hey Syd and XSL-List,
> >
> > "The client may not even notice that all of her PIs have lost a leading
> > space after her files are 'fixed' ..." indeed!
> >
> > Maybe the solution here is to introduce a new house rule, namely
> > whitespace in PIs is never semantically significant, at least without
> > further specification of the PI or family of PIs, and hence is fair game
> > for reducing or rewriting.
> >
> > From this point of view, normalization can be considered a feature not a
> > bug. The fact that the rule is not in the data model specs does not mean it
> > can't hang on your wall. It might be a good rule to have for other reasons
> > too. I am not proposing that everyone adopt it. (Maybe there are
> > counter use cases.) But it might be nice for you.
> >
> > Cheers, Wendell
> >
> > On Sun, May 8, 2022 at 3:59 AM Bauman, Syd 
> > s(_dot_)bauman(_at_)northeastern(_dot_)edu <
> > xsl-list-service(_at_)lists(_dot_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com> wrote:
> >
> > > Thanks for the thoughts, Dimitre. Could also use some other character
> > > (like ␠ (U+2420) or ␤ (U+2424)) and convert it later. But in fact I have no
> > > need to force a whitespace character on output. If I don’t mention it, the
> > > client may not even notice that all of her PIs have lost a leading space
> > > after her files are “fixed” with my XSLT. But the spaces are summarily
> > > unimportant. (Although it does make me wonder how they got there in the
> > > first place. :-)
> > >
> > > ------------------------------
> > > Syd, I see two ways (if you really need to) to maintain a PI whose
> > > string value starts with a whitespace character:
> > >
> > >   1. Enclose this value in some strippable non-whitespace characters
> > > (say apostrophes or quotes), or,
> > >
> > >   2. If the value is guaranteed not to end with a space character, just
> > > use the reversed string value, and when you get that in your code, reverse
> > > it back.
> > >
> > > Hope this helps,
> > >
> > > XSL-List info and archive <http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list>
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> >
> > --
> > ...Wendell Piez... ...wendell -at- nist -dot- gov...
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> --
> Cheers,
> Dimitre Novatchev
> ---------------------------------------
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-- 
...Wendell Piez... ...wendell -at- nist -dot- gov...
...wendellpiez.com... ...pellucidliterature.org... ...pausepress.org...
...github.com/wendellpiez... ...gitlab.coko.foundation/wendell...
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