Subject: The use of LWSP around EQUAL, LBRKT, RBRKT, COMMA

From: Chuong Nguyen <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 11:34:30 -0600

EQUAL                = LWSP %x3D LWSP ; "="
   LBRKT                = LWSP %x7B LWSP ; "{"
   RBRKT                = LWSP %x7D LWSP ; "}"
   COMMA                = LWSP %x2C LWSP ; ","

I did not noticed this before but what is the point of having LWSP
around the following symbols?
At first I thought that LWSP is just white space so I guess it is ok to
have some white spaces
around these symbols.  I guess it helps in the readability of the
message.
But if readability is the purpose than why have short token name?
(I am for short token name w/no extra spaces).

But this gets hairy when LWSP is defined as

   LWSP                 = *( WSP / COMMENT / EOL )

   COMMENT              = ";" *(SafeChar/ RestChar / WSP / %x22) EOL

So one can do something silly like this

                ADD = ; comment for what purpose after ADD
T12324 { ; No indent because of EOL
; some valid descriptors here EOL
}

Was the intend to allow someone to comment every command, descriptor as
to the
purpose of the message?

But what is the equivalent to this in binary encoding?
If binary encoding can live w/o it, why does text encoding need it.

Maybe they should be defined as shown below.
The same way that token name is defined w/long and short names.
This shouldn't impact anyone parser.

 EQUAL                = (LWSP %x3D LWSP          /            "=")
   LBRKT                = (LWSP %x7B LWSP           /             "{")
   RBRKT                = (LWSP %x7D LWSP           /             "}")
   COMMA                = (LWSP %x2C LWSP       /              ",")

Chuong

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