Subject: Re: some proposed edits for the next (final!?) draft

From: Larry Cynkin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2000 13:18:41 EDT

In a message dated 8/17/00 12:43:48 PM, [email-masked] writes:

>So.
>
>    Acme<sp>Widget
>        or
>    Acme<sp><sp>Widget
>        or
>    Acme<sp>Widget<sp>
>
>Would all produce different results

I cannot think of a scenario in which we would want white space to
distinguish common names in this way, but encoding it "just in case" doesn't
prevent a server from applying its own white-space filtering rules as a
service differentiator.

Cheers,
Larry

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From: "Marshall L. Moseley" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2000 10:34:59 -0700

>>, but encoding it "just in case" doesn't

If someone could explain how encoding white space helps users, I'd be all
for it. But all it seems to do is create more opportunity for error without
adding utiliyt of any kind.

--Marshall

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From: Michael Mealling <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2000 13:34:49 -0400

> prevent a server from applying its own white-space filtering rules as a

Yep. Although calling it a 'service differentiator' is being kind of
generous! ;-) "Come on down and use Joe's CNRP Server! We're so crazy that
we collapse white space!!

-MM

--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Mealling        |      Vote Libertarian!       | www.rwhois.net/michael
Sr. Research Engineer   |   www.ga.lp.org/gwinnett     | ICQ#:         14198821
Network Solutions       |          www.lp.org          |  [email-masked]

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From: Michael Mealling <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2000 13:45:11 -0400

> adding utiliyt of any kind.

Well, since its not something we can stop anyway we should at least call
attention to it so people are aware of what can happen....

-MM

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From: "Martin J. Duerst" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2000 12:43:29 +0900

Michael - Can you be more specific? What can happen?

Regards,   Martin.

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From: Michael Mealling <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2000 07:14:30 -0400

> Michael - Can you be more specific? What can happen?

Two things:

1) if someone is new to XML and for some reason whitespace is important to
them and they don't encode it, XML will collapse it.

2) if someone gets a query from a client that encodes whitespace then
the server needs to be aware that encoded whitespace is treated differently
by the XML parser than unencoded whitespace. I.e. if some server out there
collapses whitespace before doing a query to its database then it simply
can't take something directly out of the XML, it needs to let the parser
convert encoded whitespace into the character encoding being used...

This really isn't that important. Its a warning to implementors that
is 100% equivalent to saying "Hey stupid, XML collapses whitespace. If you
care then that means you have to do something extra." Not everyone
who will read this speck is fluent in the more detailed interactions of
XML and how it uses
pick_appropriate_jargon(code points, characters, character sets, octets, etc)
and the interaction with what was formerly known as whitespace.

-MM