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Re: Handling of significant whitespace in .NET XmlReade r

• To: xml-dev@l...
• Subject: Re: Handling of significant whitespace in .NET XmlReade r
• From: Joe English <jenglish@f...>
• Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2003 11:29:08 -0700
• In-reply-to: <ADA1E0AB9452BB48B063228627805EC9093621@R...>
• References: <ADA1E0AB9452BB48B063228627805EC9093621@R...>

Derek Denny-Brown wrote:

> Whitespace handling rules is one of the top issues on my list of
> problems with Xml.  There is no solution which answers all customers'
> needs.  If Xml had just provided a way to unambiguously identify mixed
> content without a DTD, this would not be a problem.  I remember the
> (many & long) discussions on the topic and I don't fault those who made
> the decision.  Hindsight is always 20/20.

Even _with_ 20/20 hindsight I don't think anyone's devised
a way to unambiguously and reliably identify mixed content
without a DTD or some other external device that provides
vocabulary-specific information.

For all the quirks and seemingly-bizarre whitespace rules
in SGML, it's one of the few markup technologies where
whitespace handling tends to Just Work (as long as you
follow best practices like "avoid pernicious mixed
content").


--Joe English

  jenglish@f...

• References:
  • RE: Handling of significant whitespace in .NET XmlReade r
    • From: "Derek Denny-Brown" <derekdb@m...>

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