Re: [docbook-apps] whitespace - confirmation please

["M.Canales.es" <macana@macana-es.com>]

El Lunes, 4 de Junio de 2007 13:10, Samuel Wright escribió:
> Hi All,
>
> Could someone give me a hand regarding my understanding of whitespace.
> Whitespace is significant in any element that can contain text, as I
> understand it.

That depend on the xml:space value assigned to that element on the DTD, and on 
how the parsed used handles the "default" value. The definition discissed in 
the W3C Recommendation for XML-1.0 can be found here:

http://www.w3.org/TR/xml/#sec-white-space

> so
> ----
> <para>sdfsdfsdfds<para>
> ----
>
> is better than
> ----
> <para>
> sadsdsd</para>
> ----

Like said David, for block elements it not matter.

> Does this apply also with subelements?
> ----
> <para><simplelist>...
> ----
> not
> ----
> <para>
> <simplelist>...
> ----

If the child element is an inline, it might depend on the parser 
implementation.

For example:

  <para>
     Some text
    <command>echo</command>
    more text
  <para>

should be equal to

<para>Some text <command>echo</command> more text</para>

but 

  <para>
     Some text
    <command>
       echo
    </command>
    more text
  <para>

might be serialized as

<para>Some text <command> echo </command> more text</para>

That is why if some inline tag need be splitted to fit the desired file line 
length is better to do it on an attribute, if any. For example:

  <para>Some text <filename
    class="directory">/usr/local</command> more text
  <para>

> What about editor indentation? Do all my <para> elements need to be at
> the start of the line?

You can safely to use indentation on all block elements, except on verbatim 
environments (screen, literallayout, and so on)

-- 
Manuel Canales Esparcia
Usuario de LFS nº2886:       http://www.linuxfromscratch.org
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