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Re: Retain or discard whitespace surrounding an element?

• From: Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com>
• To: Roger L Costello <costello@mitre.org>
• Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2021 11:54:18 +0000

> On 27 Dec 2021, at 12:03, Roger L Costello <costello@mitre.org> wrote:
> 
> [Definition] Lexer: a tool that inputs a linear sequence of characters and assembles them into meaningful groups (tokens). A lexer is also called a scanner or a tokenizer.

In the XML world we generally call it a parser.
> 
> 
> 
> In the following XML document, what is the content of the <Document> element? 
> 
> <Document>
>    <Test>Hello, world</Test>
> </Document>
> 

Whitespace is signfiicant unless there is information (e.g. a DTD or schema) that says it isn't.

>  Is that good language design?
> 

No, it's a design mistake that causes untold extra costs and complexity in XML processing.

There are many ways it could have been avoided, for example by writing insignificant whitespace as

<Document
  <Test>Hello, world</Test>
/Document>

But we've learnt as a community that trying to improve XML doesn't work: the standard is too deeply embedded.

Michael Kay
Saxonica

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Retain or discard whitespace surrounding an element?
    • From: Tim Bray <tbray@textuality.com>

• References:
  • Retain or discard whitespace surrounding an element?
    • From: Roger L Costello <costello@mitre.org>