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whitespace normalization (was Re: Create XML)

• To: "xml-dev@l..." <xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: whitespace normalization (was Re: Create XML)
• From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>
• Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2003 10:43:08 -0400
• In-reply-to: <3EF29241.8050508@j...>
• References: <20030620034910.1E6EB13383E@b...><20030620034910.1E6EB13383E@b...>

At 11:49 AM 6/20/2003 +0700, James Clark wrote:
>It's worse than this.  If your infoset contains a carriage return, you 
>have to output it as a numeric character reference, otherwise line-end 
>normalization will turn it into a line-feed. Similarly, if attribute 
>values in the infoset contain line-feeds or tabs, they need to be output 
>as numeric character references, otherwise attribute value normalization 
>will turn them into spaces.

The more I've looked at whitespace normalization by XML processors, the 
more it seem to be a convenience for one group of users which produces 
strange and largely unavoidable inconveniences for other classes of 
users.  The complexity seems to grow especially rapidly if multiple 
parse/manipulate/re-serialize cycles occur.

(Then there were parsers which called themselves "XML applications", with 
their own expectations for whitespace processing, but I haven't looked into 
MSXML whitespace handling in a while.)

I now have a processor (Ripper) that lets me do my own normalization (or 
not), but this seems generally like a field where more consideration might 
be a good idea.

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: whitespace normalization (was Re: CreateXML)
    • From: Mitch Amiano <mamiano@n...>

• References:
  • Re: Create XML
    • From: Uche Ogbuji <uche.ogbuji@f...>
  • Re: Create XML
    • From: James Clark <jjc@j...>

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