(dsssl) "Normalizing" spaces

Subject: (dsssl) "Normalizing" spaces
From: MARK.WROTH@xxxxxxxxxxx (Wroth, Mark)
Date: Tue, 8 May 2001 08:49:06 -0700
I have observed that when processed with Norman Walsh's Modular DSSSL Style
Sheets, sequences of whitespace characters in SGML DocBook are replaced by a
single space. In other words, an element like

            <para>This         is paragraph content. 
                  Note the large quantities of whitespace
                  (spaces, tabs, and newlines)   
                  found in the paragraph.</para>

will show up in the output as

This is paragraph content. Note the large quantities of whitespace (spaces,
tabs, and newlines) found in the paragraph.


On the other hand, when I take a similar element from another DTD and
process it with a homegrown style sheet, the spaces are faithfully
reproduced in the output (especially the RTF output).

Since I use emacs/PSGML to process the documents, the default behavior of
the editor is to insert whitespace to show structure (by indentation) --
which means the document tends to have a lot of "extraneous" whitespace
unless I explicitly remove it.  I would greatly prefer to mimic the
DocBook/Modular Style Sheet behavior.

Can anyone tell me how this is accomplished? I can't find code in the style
sheet that I recognize as accomplishing it, nor has poking around in the
DSSSL spec gotten me anywhere.

Thanks

Mark

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