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Re: Initial whitespace in PI from XSLT, main body

Subject: Re: Initial whitespace in PI from XSLT, main body
From: "Wendell Piez wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" <xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 9 May 2022 14:57:34 -0000
Re:  Initial whitespace in PI from XSLT
Hey Dimitre,

A bit confused - were you (not) taking me to suggest I thought the rules
should be changed, or that I was proposing Syd adapt to the rules -- and
the (faulty) implementations -- as they currently are?

My "house style" suggestion is along the lines of adapting to both the
current rules, and the reality that along the edges, not all deployed
tooling works exactly the same. But your critique also seems to be that we
are not (as a community) aggressive enough in changing the rules, whatever
the effects that has in forcing obsolescence?

Meanwhile, making it explicit that whatever the specs say, you can forgive
a little whitespace munging from your tools ("I don't care about whitespace
so you are free to munge"), seems to me no worse than a rule that says
"whoa don't mess with the whitespace in my PIs, since I might want to
inject code of some nature" (always a great idea).

Cheers,
Wendell

On Sun, May 8, 2022 at 2:50 PM Dimitre Novatchev dnovatchev@xxxxxxxxx <
xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> > Dimitre, how so?
>
> Wendell,
>
> Do we want the behavior of almost all current XML processing tools to
> suddenly become "incompliant"?
>
> I certainly don't care one way or the other, as I have no code invested in
> using PI's values, but maybe other people's existing tools/suites would
> have to be updated in order to become conformant with the new rules, and
> the user's assets that are relying on these, ...,  and some may never do
so?
>
> I personally would prefer that the way the various XML-related
> specifications are maintained were not so conservative in regards to
> maintaining backwards compatibility, but this is the reality. Contrast this
> with C# or Java/Scala where it is  quite frequent to have some features
> made obsolete and no longer supported. The lucky 31st century C#/Java/Scala
> programmers will not have to comply with obscure and unexplainable "rules"
> that originated thousands of years ago and had no other reasons whatsoever
> to being enforced through eternity except to only preserve "backwards
> compatibility"...
>
> Cheers,
> Dimitre
>
> On Sun, May 8, 2022 at 11:20 AM Wendell Piez wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <
> xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> Dimitre, how so?
>>
>> Just because current tools preserve whitespace (in PIs) is no reason you
>> can't have a rule that says it should not always be assumed to be
>> persistent, within your data set or processing scope.
>>
>> There are actually places where this kind of thing matters. For example,
>> I would not want to assert such a (house) rule over comments, mainly
>> because if I tolerate comments at all in the data, I had better tolerate
>> line breaks, pseudo-markup and ASCII art, or I am apt to lose much of the
>> information in the comments. (Am I not?)
>>
>> However, having rules about the use and "significance" of whitespace
>> within markup (indeed within differentiated forms of markup) is so normal
>> as to be a perennial FAQ.
>>
>> Cheers, Wendell
>>
>> On Sun, May 8, 2022 at 12:57 PM Dimitre Novatchev dnovatchev@xxxxxxxxx <
>> xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> > Maybe the solution here is to introduce a new house rule, namely
>>> whitespace in PIs is never semantically significant,
>>> > at least without further specification of the PI or family of PIs, and
>>> hence is fair game for reducing or rewriting.
>>>
>>> This will violate the current rules, which eliminate only the leading
>>> whitespace and leave intact any interim or even trailing whitespace.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Dimitre
>>>
>>> On Sun, May 8, 2022 at 6:46 AM Wendell Piez wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <
>>> xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hey Syd and XSL-List,
>>>>
>>>> "The client may not even notice that all of her PIs have lost a leading
>>>> space after her files are 'fixed' ..." indeed!
>>>>
>>>> Maybe the solution here is to introduce a new house rule, namely
>>>> whitespace in PIs is never semantically significant, at least without
>>>> further specification of the PI or family of PIs, and hence is fair game
>>>> for reducing or rewriting.
>>>>
>>>> From this point of view, normalization can be considered a feature not
>>>> a bug. The fact that the rule is not in the data model specs does not
mean
>>>> it can't hang on your wall. It might be a good rule to have for other
>>>> reasons too. I am not proposing that everyone adopt it. (Maybe there are
>>>> counter use cases.) But it might be nice for you.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers, Wendell
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, May 8, 2022 at 3:59 AM Bauman, Syd s.bauman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <
>>>> xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Thanks for the thoughts, Dimitre. Could also use some other character
>>>>> (like b  (U+2420) or b$ (U+2424)) and convert it later. But in fact I
have no
>>>>> need to force a whitespace character on output. If I donbt mention it,
the
>>>>> client may not even notice that all of her PIs have lost a leading
space
>>>>> after her files are bfixedb with my XSLT. But the spaces are
summarily
>>>>> unimportant. (Although it does make me wonder how they got there in the
>>>>> first place. :-)
>>>>>
>>>>> ------------------------------
>>>>> Syd, I see two ways (if you really need to) to maintain a PI whose
>>>>> string value starts with a whitespace character:
>>>>>
>>>>>   1. Enclose this value in some strippable non-whitespace characters
>>>>> (say apostrophes or quotes), or,
>>>>>
>>>>>   2. If the value is guaranteed not to end with a space character,
>>>>> just use the reversed string value, and when you get that in your code,
>>>>> reverse it back.
>>>>>
>>>>> Hope this helps,
>>>>>
>>>>> XSL-List info and archive <http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list>
>>>>> EasyUnsubscribe <http://lists.mulberrytech.com/unsub/xsl-list/174322>
>>>>> (by email)
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> ...Wendell Piez... ...wendell -at- nist -dot- gov...
>>>> ...wendellpiez.com... ...pellucidliterature.org... ...pausepress.org...
>>>> ...github.com/wendellpiez... ...gitlab.coko.foundation/wendell...
>>>> XSL-List info and archive <http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list>
>>>> EasyUnsubscribe <http://lists.mulberrytech.com/unsub/xsl-list/782854>
(by
>>>> email)
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Cheers,
>>> Dimitre Novatchev
>>> ---------------------------------------
>>> Truly great madness cannot be achieved without significant intelligence.
>>> ---------------------------------------
>>> To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk
>>> -------------------------------------
>>> Never fight an inanimate object
>>> -------------------------------------
>>> To avoid situations in which you might make mistakes may be the
>>> biggest mistake of all
>>> ------------------------------------
>>> Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.
>>> -------------------------------------
>>> You've achieved success in your field when you don't know whether what
>>> you're doing is work or play
>>> -------------------------------------
>>> To achieve the impossible dream, try going to sleep.
>>> -------------------------------------
>>> Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
>>> -------------------------------------
>>> Typing monkeys will write all Shakespeare's works in 200yrs.Will they
>>> write all patents, too? :)
>>> -------------------------------------
>>> Sanity is madness put to good use.
>>> -------------------------------------
>>> I finally figured out the only reason to be alive is to enjoy it.
>>>
>>> XSL-List info and archive <http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list>
>>> EasyUnsubscribe <http://lists.mulberrytech.com/unsub/xsl-list/174322> (by
>>> email)
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> ...Wendell Piez... ...wendell -at- nist -dot- gov...
>> ...wendellpiez.com... ...pellucidliterature.org... ...pausepress.org...
>> ...github.com/wendellpiez... ...gitlab.coko.foundation/wendell...
>> XSL-List info and archive <http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list>
>> EasyUnsubscribe <http://lists.mulberrytech.com/unsub/xsl-list/782854> (by
>> email)
>>
>
>
> --
> Cheers,
> Dimitre Novatchev
> ---------------------------------------
> Truly great madness cannot be achieved without significant intelligence.
> ---------------------------------------
> To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk
> -------------------------------------
> Never fight an inanimate object
> -------------------------------------
> To avoid situations in which you might make mistakes may be the
> biggest mistake of all
> ------------------------------------
> Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.
> -------------------------------------
> You've achieved success in your field when you don't know whether what
> you're doing is work or play
> -------------------------------------
> To achieve the impossible dream, try going to sleep.
> -------------------------------------
> Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
> -------------------------------------
> Typing monkeys will write all Shakespeare's works in 200yrs.Will they
> write all patents, too? :)
> -------------------------------------
> Sanity is madness put to good use.
> -------------------------------------
> I finally figured out the only reason to be alive is to enjoy it.
>
> XSL-List info and archive <http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list>
> EasyUnsubscribe <http://lists.mulberrytech.com/unsub/xsl-list/174322> (by
> email <>)
>


--
...Wendell Piez... ...wendell -at- nist -dot- gov...
...wendellpiez.com... ...pellucidliterature.org... ...pausepress.org...
...github.com/wendellpiez... ...gitlab.coko.foundation/wendell...

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