RE: MSXML Whitespace handling

I agree with all this.

And then, there is that damn final argument on the logic of being one way
or the other:
  Most MSXML users I (and all at the list, it seems) know find that it
  would be more practical if it was preserving whitespace by default.

Has Microsoft a diferent perception from the users they know?


Have fun,
Paulo Gaspar

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:owner-xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Jeni Tennison
> Sent: Wednesday, August 02, 2000 02:04
> To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: RE: MSXML Whitespace handling
>
>
> At 13:51 01/08/00 -0700, Andrew Kimball wrote:
> >As for mangling by default, that is a beef with the design of the MS DOM,
> >not with the conformance of MS XSL.  The MS DOM defaults towards
> performance
> >and low memory consumption, while still staying within the XML
> 1.0 spec.  I
> >think it was the right decision for the vast majority of users.
> Users who
> >need to preserve whitespace can always set preserveWhiteSpace=true when
> >loading the DOM, or use xml:space="preserve" to tag significant
> whitespace.
>
> As Andy says, it is a beef with the design of the MS DOM rather
> than MS XSL.
>
> >From a standards point of view, it all comes down to whether MS DOM is
> counted as an XML processor or an XML application.  The XML Recommendation
> states:
>
> "A software module called an XML processor is used to read XML documents
> and provide access to their content and structure. It is assumed that an
> XML processor is doing its work on behalf of another module, called the
> application. This specification describes the required behavior of an XML
> processor in terms of how it must read XML data and the
> information it must
> provide to the application."
>
> Andy said:
>
> "The application responsible for parsing the input XML and
> building the tree cache is the DOM, not XSLT.  Therefore, it is perfectly
> reasonable to view the DOM as the "application" referred to in the XML 1.0
> spec."
>
> It seems the job of MS DOM is to read in (parse) and provide access to the
> content and structure of the XML document: squarely in the preserve of the
> 'XML processor' rather than the 'XML application'.  (If that's not the
> case, how does MS DOM *apply* the information in the XML document as a
> standalone application?)  It seems to me that it is MS XSL that actually
> performs some action as a result of the XML: MS XSL is an XML application,
> MS DOM is an XML processor.
>
> In the section on Whitespace Processing (2.10) the XML
> Recommendation states:
>
> "An XML processor must always pass all characters in a document that are
> not markup through to the application. A validating XML processor
> must also
> inform the application which of these characters constitute white space
> appearing in element content."
>
> Given that MS DOM is an XML processor, it should be passing the whitespace
> within xsl:text through to MS XSL so that it can deal with it properly.
>
> >From a usability point of view, in my experience one of the main uses of
> xsl:text is to add whitespace in some output.  I'm sure that it makes MS
> DOM quicker and leaner not to worry about whitespace, but it seriously
> detracts from its utility as a XML processor to be used by an XSLT
> Processor like MS XSL.
>
> If there was a normative XSLT DTD, and the XSLT DTD specified:
>
> <!ATTLIST xsl:text
>   xml:space	(preserve)	#FIXED	'preserve'>
>
> then presumably MS DOM would preserve the whitespace within xsl:text.
>
> As it is, the DTD that is supplied within the XSLT Recommendation is
> non-normative and I imagine that most XSLT processors decide what to do on
> the basis of an implicit understanding of the intention behind the
> definitions given within the XSLT Recommendation rather than relying on an
> explicit DTD.  It is clearly the intention within
> [http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt#strip] that xsl:text should preserve
> whitespace;
> XML applications that deal with XSLT should treat these elements
> as if they
> had xsl:space="preserve" declared on them.  As a compromise, could MS DOM
> treat xsl:text as if xml:space="preserve" were defined on it?
>
> Perhaps unfortunately, because it would be nice if a small compromise were
> all that's needed, the rules governing whether whitespace is significant
> within XSL elements is more complex that whether an element has
> xml:space="preserve" or even whether it's an xsl:text element.  In XSLT,
> you can define elements within which whitespace should be preserved using
> xsl:preserve-space (in combination with xsl:strip-space).  If MS
> XSL is not
> given sufficient information to process these elements according to the
> XSLT Recommendation, then these elements are useless when used with it.  A
> larger compromise would involve MS DOM treating all mixed-content and
> #PCDATA XSLT elements as if xml:space="preserve" were defined on them.
>
> However, for true compliance as a XML processor, to avoid spurious
> exceptions for XSLT elements, and to enable MS XSL (and, eventually, other
> XML applications) to perform in a useful and compliant manner, MS DOM
> should preserve whitespace by default.  If MS DOM does not, MS XSL should
> use a conformant XML processor instead, to enable it to conform
> to the XSLT
> Recommendation.
>
> My 10p worth :)
>
> Cheers,
>
> Jeni
>
> Dr Jeni Tennison
> Epistemics Ltd * Strelley Hall * Nottingham * NG8 6PE
> tel: 0115 906 1301 * fax: 0115 906 1304 * email:
> jeni.tennison@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>
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