xml:space or not

[gregor FELLENZ-5]

hi list,

this is an more philosophical thought/question. i'm tested some docbook
documents and playing with some custom xslts.

problem is indentation and strip-space.

with my xslt i need to strip all white space between non mixed content
elements.

problem with the following snippet:
<para><emphasis>em1</emphasis> <emphasis>em2</emphasis></para>

with <xsl:strip-space elements="*"/> this is transformed to:
<para><emphasis>em1</emphasis><emphasis>em2</emphasis></para>

which is obviously not what i want. with:
<para><emphasis>em1</emphasis> x <emphasis>em2</emphasis></para>

everything works fine, whitespace is preserved.

i know how to get around the limitation with:
<xsl:preserve-space elements="para"/>

in this case i have to add any mixed content element to the list, i.e.
reading the whole dtd checking/adding every element.

wouldnt it be better to add an fixed attribute to any mixed content
element like:
xml:space CDATA #FIXED "preserve"

this would help not only with xslt transformation also with pretty print
functions (assumed the dtd is interpreted). and would make clear how to
handle the current element.

i'm not assuming that this is added in near future, i would be more
interested if this idea was discussed. and/or if this method causes any
problems with custom dtds.

hope this question is fitting into the list topic!

all the best,
gregor

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[Bob Stayton]

Hi Gregor,
I'm not sure it is appropriate to add xml:space="preserve" to all mixed
content elements. That attribute tells applications to preserve *all* white
space.  Wouldn't that have the unintended consequence of preserving indents
and line breaks within a para in its formatted output?  The default behavior
in XSL-FO is to collapse multiple white space characters into a single
space, giving paragraphs the nice formatted flow.  If a stylesheet
encounters an element with xml:space="preserve", that should override the
default behavior if the processor were behaving correctly, no?

Bob Stayton
Sagehill Enterprises
bobs@...


----- Original Message -----
From: "gregor FELLENZ" <gf_public@...>
To: <docbook@...>
Sent: Wednesday, September 23, 2009 6:17 AM
Subject: [docbook] xml:space or not

> hi list,
>
> this is an more philosophical thought/question. i'm tested some docbook
> documents and playing with some custom xslts.
>
> problem is indentation and strip-space.
>
> with my xslt i need to strip all white space between non mixed content
> elements.
>
> problem with the following snippet:
> <para><emphasis>em1</emphasis> <emphasis>em2</emphasis></para>
>
> with <xsl:strip-space elements="*"/> this is transformed to:
> <para><emphasis>em1</emphasis><emphasis>em2</emphasis></para>
>
> which is obviously not what i want. with:
> <para><emphasis>em1</emphasis> x <emphasis>em2</emphasis></para>
>
> everything works fine, whitespace is preserved.
>
> i know how to get around the limitation with:
> <xsl:preserve-space elements="para"/>
>
> in this case i have to add any mixed content element to the list, i.e.
> reading the whole dtd checking/adding every element.
>
> wouldnt it be better to add an fixed attribute to any mixed content
> element like:
> xml:space CDATA #FIXED "preserve"
>
> this would help not only with xslt transformation also with pretty print
> functions (assumed the dtd is interpreted). and would make clear how to
> handle the current element.
>
> i'm not assuming that this is added in near future, i would be more
> interested if this idea was discussed. and/or if this method causes any
> problems with custom dtds.
>
> hope this question is fitting into the list topic!
>
> all the best,
> gregor
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: docbook-unsubscribe@...
> For additional commands, e-mail: docbook-help@...
>
>
>

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[gregor FELLENZ-5]

hi bob,

i agree that unintended white space would represented. but i want to avoid
unintended whitespace. i.e. a tool with indentation function does produce bad
renderign results. my example, to be correct: the slightly changed example
does not work with xsl-fo either:

this line:
<para><emphasis>em1 </emphasis><emphasis>em2</emphasis></para>

indentation with spy, oxygen (or xslt indent="yes") results in:
<para>
  <emphasis>em1 </emphasis>
  <emphasis>em2</emphasis>
</para>

this produces with antenna house:
em1  em2
     ^^
    two spaces.

in theory the xml:space attribute should fix the problem. in practise oxygen
ignores the attribute. but anyway, in theory i could avoid the situation
above.

all the best,
gregor



On Monday 28 September 2009 18:42:29 Bob Stayton wrote:
> Hi Gregor,
> I'm not sure it is appropriate to add xml:space="preserve" to all mixed
> content elements. That attribute tells applications to preserve *all* white
> space.  Wouldn't that have the unintended consequence of preserving indents
> and line breaks within a para in its formatted output?

> The default
> behavior in XSL-FO is to collapse multiple white space characters into a
> single space, giving paragraphs the nice formatted flow.  If a stylesheet
> encounters an element with xml:space="preserve", that should override the
> default behavior if the processor were behaving correctly, no?
>
> Bob Stayton
> Sagehill Enterprises
> bobs@...
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "gregor FELLENZ" <gf_public@...>
> To: <docbook@...>
> Sent: Wednesday, September 23, 2009 6:17 AM
> Subject: [docbook] xml:space or not
>
> > hi list,
> >
> > this is an more philosophical thought/question. i'm tested some docbook
> > documents and playing with some custom xslts.
> >
> > problem is indentation and strip-space.
> >
> > with my xslt i need to strip all white space between non mixed content
> > elements.
> >
> > problem with the following snippet:
> > <para><emphasis>em1</emphasis> <emphasis>em2</emphasis></para>
> >
> > with <xsl:strip-space elements="*"/> this is transformed to:
> > <para><emphasis>em1</emphasis><emphasis>em2</emphasis></para>
> >
> > which is obviously not what i want. with:
> > <para><emphasis>em1</emphasis> x <emphasis>em2</emphasis></para>
> >
> > everything works fine, whitespace is preserved.
> >
> > i know how to get around the limitation with:
> > <xsl:preserve-space elements="para"/>
> >
> > in this case i have to add any mixed content element to the list, i.e.
> > reading the whole dtd checking/adding every element.
> >
> > wouldnt it be better to add an fixed attribute to any mixed content
> > element like:
> > xml:space CDATA #FIXED "preserve"
> >
> > this would help not only with xslt transformation also with pretty print
> > functions (assumed the dtd is interpreted). and would make clear how to
> > handle the current element.
> >
> > i'm not assuming that this is added in near future, i would be more
> > interested if this idea was discussed. and/or if this method causes any
> > problems with custom dtds.
> >
> > hope this question is fitting into the list topic!
> >
> > all the best,
> > gregor
> >
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> > To unsubscribe, e-mail: docbook-unsubscribe@...
> > For additional commands, e-mail: docbook-help@...

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[Jirka Kosek]

gregor FELLENZ wrote:

> i agree that unintended white space would represented. but i want to avoid
> unintended whitespace. i.e. a tool with indentation function does produce bad
> renderign results. my example, to be correct: the slightly changed example
> does not work with xsl-fo either:
>
> this line:
> <para><emphasis>em1 </emphasis><emphasis>em2</emphasis></para>
>
> indentation with spy, oxygen (or xslt indent="yes") results in:
> <para>
>   <emphasis>em1 </emphasis>
>   <emphasis>em2</emphasis>
> </para>

In general, it is not good idea to indent elements with mixed content.

On oXygen you can control identing and whitespace preservation on
element basis in Options -> Editor -> Format -> XML.

                        Jirka

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[George Cristian Bina-2]

Hi Gregor,

gregor FELLENZ wrote:
> [...]
>
> in theory the xml:space attribute should fix the problem. in practise oxygen
> ignores the attribute. but anyway, in theory i could avoid the situation
> above.
> [...]

oXygen does not ignore xml:space. It will be great if you can provide an
example to show exactly the issue you had when using xml:space.

Best Regards,
George
--
George Cristian Bina
<oXygen/> XML Editor, Schema Editor and XSLT Editor/Debugger
http://www.oxygenxml.com

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[gregor FELLENZ-5]

hi george,

this was not clear in my post. oxygen (here version 10.2) does ignore
fixed xml:space attributes declared within a dtd. a literally attribute
is interpreted.

the following dtd:

<!ELEMENT root (p) >
<!ELEMENT p (#PCDATA | em)* >
<!ATTLIST p
     xml:space CDATA #FIXED "preserve">

<!ELEMENT  em (#PCDATA)>

validates this document:

<!DOCTYPE root SYSTEM "ex.dtd">
<root>
     <p><em>em </em><em>text</em></p>
</root>

but oxygen indents the <p>-element. solution: you have to add the
attribute to your instance.

regards,
gregor


George Cristian Bina schrieb:

> Hi Gregor,
>
> gregor FELLENZ wrote:
>> [...]
>>
>> in theory the xml:space attribute should fix the problem. in practise
>> oxygen ignores the attribute. but anyway, in theory i could avoid the
>> situation above. [...]
>
> oXygen does not ignore xml:space. It will be great if you can provide an
> example to show exactly the issue you had when using xml:space.
>
> Best Regards,
> George

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