[XSL-LIST Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: MSXML Whitespace handling
Mike, > Although the XML spec does make it clear that the parser has the option of > discarding insignificant whitespace, the XSLT spec makes it sound like I can > expect whitespace characters in my physical document... Where does the spec say "physical document"? The spec uses the term "input tree" -- I think deliberately, because it does not imply that the XSLT processor constructed the tree. I would love to hear James Clark's input on this point, since it is the crux of this discussion. > ...to be preserved if they're in xsl:text. The XSLT rules only apply when there is space in the input tree. In this case, the DOM stripped this space when building the input tree, presumably with the user's permission. > ...However inaccurate that may be, it would seem to be > preferable to preserve whitespace if you know that the DOM will be used as > the basis of a stylesheet tree. MS DOM does not have this information. When the user loads the DOM, they do not have to declare that it will be used as the basis of a stylesheet tree. Why should they have to? They may use the same DOM as the basis of transforms, selections, and custom DOM API tree walks. They may even perform these operations concurrently if the DOM is free-threaded. They may have the same DOM running on their server for days, peforming hundreds or thousands of transforms over its data. The point is that the user has control over initial whitespace handling. XSLT has control only when the user begins a transform. ~Andy Kimball MSXSL Dev -----Original Message----- From: Mike Brown [mailto:mike@xxxxxxxx] Sent: Tuesday, August 01, 2000 4:53 PM To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: MSXML Whitespace handling Andrew Kimball wrote: > I think it was the right decision for the vast majority of users. For users of the MS DOM, sure. For users of the MS DOM when it is being used as the basis of the stylesheet tree in XSLT processing, I think that Mike Kay's statement still stands: >> I accept the argument that it is legitimate to allow the user to mangle >> the tree before passing it to XSLT, but it seems wrong to mangle it by >> default. Your response is: > Users who need to preserve whitespace can always set > preserveWhiteSpace=true when loading the DOM, or use > xml:space="preserve" to tag significant whitespace. The XSLT 1.0 Recommendation doesn't contain a warning that xsl:text elements should be written with xml:space="preserve" in order to ensure whitespace is handled as one would expect. My guess, as I detailed in an email yesterday, is that the spec was written without taking this into consideration. Although the XML spec does make it clear that the parser has the option of discarding insignificant whitespace, the XSLT spec makes it sound like I can expect whitespace characters in my physical document to be preserved if they're in xsl:text. However inaccurate that may be, it would seem to be preferable to preserve whitespace if you know that the DOM will be used as the basis of a stylesheet tree. -Mike B. XSL-List info and archive: http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list XSL-List info and archive: http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
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