Re: [office-formula] Fwd: [office-comment] ODF Part 2 Open Formula -Whitespace between FunctionName and opening parentheses of parameter list

[robert_weir@us.ibm.com]

If we go forward with the spec as-is, then we'll need to permit optional 
white space per the EBNF.  And we won't be able to change this in errata.

Does this break anyone? 

-Rob


Eike Rathke <eike.rathke@oracle.com> wrote on 02/08/2011 07:16:27 AM:

> 
> On Tuesday, 2011-02-08 00:41:11 -0500, David A. Wheeler wrote:
> 
> > The following message was just posted; it looks like an error in 
> the part 2 spec (since the report indicates an inconsistency).
> > 
> > Comments?
> > 
> > ----- Start Forwarded Message -----
> > Sent: Mon, 07 Feb 2011 20:50:35 -0800
> > From: Martin Devlin <martin.devlin@ireland.com>
> > To: office-comment@lists.oasis-open.org
> > Subject: [office-comment] ODF Part 2 Open Formula - Whitespace 
> between FunctionName and
> >  opening parentheses of parameter list
> [...]
> > In Section 5.2:
> [...]
> >   Expression ::=
> >     ....
> >     FunctionName Whitespace* '(' ParameterList ')' |
> >     ....
> [...]
> > In Section 5.14:
> > "Whitespace shall be ignored just before a function name, but 
whitespace
> > shall not separate a function name from its initial opening
> > parentheses."
> 
> I digged out a mail dating back to 2006 and conclude that we may have
> meant to say that whitespace is not allowed between function name and
> opening parentheses:
> 
> Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2006 19:16:16 -0400
> Subject: [office-formula] Re: [office] Syntax Comments (Weir)
> From: "David A. Wheeler" <dwheeler@dwheeler.com>
> To: office-formula@lists.oasis-open.org
> Message-id: <44EA3EC0.2010103@dwheeler.com>
> 
> | robert_weir:
> [...]
> | > 5.13 -- "whitespace may not separate a function name from its
> | > initial opening parentheses" -- why the restriction?  Is there any
> | > ambiguity from having whitespace there?
> | No, not to my knowledge, directly.
> | 
> | The issue is disambiguating between named expressions
> | and function calls, because until you get to the "(" or non-"(" you 
don't
> | know what you have.  Requiring this means that if you hand-write your
> | analyzer,
> | you don't have to put in a whitespace walker there.  It's not a big 
deal.
> | But I think Excel's display syntax would have a problem if this rule
> | were relaxed,
> | and it might be tricky to store whitespace if the display format
> | couldn't handle it.
> | So this is a mild concession to a common display format.
> [...]
> 
> 
> However, OOoCalc currently allows and if given stores a space at that
> place. How about other implementations?
> 
>   Eike
> 
> 
> -- 
> Automatic string conversions considered dangerous. They are the 
GOTOstatements
> of spreadsheets.  --Robert Weir on the OpenDocument formula 
> subcommittee's list.
> [attachment "attemeqm.dat" deleted by Robert Weir/Cambridge/IBM]