Subject: Re: [xsl] Trimming (formatting-only) leading tabs/spaces from XSLT - issues? From: Philip Fearon <pgfearo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Tue, 7 Jun 2011 16:03:54 +0100 |
On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 2:59 PM, David Carlisle <davidc@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On 07/06/2011 13:47, Philip Fearon wrote: >> >> more effectively than text-only tools, trimming XSLT of >> tabs/spaces therefore shouldn't be a problem a > > well so long as the thing that was trimming knew enough xslt syntax not to > trim significant white space, which means knowing the interrelation between > xsl:text xsl:strip-space xsl:preserve-space and xml:space, and in general > (to know if xsl:strip-space or xsl:preserve-space apply), it needs to know > full xslt pattern matching behaviour. > (in practice you might want to assume that xsl:strip-space xsl:preserve > space and xml:space aren't applied to the xsl file, which simplifies things, > but will lead to failures in edge cases). Yes, xslt has well defined white space handling rules, this makes things somewhat easier. > > However even if the white space formatter does only change insignificant > white space, so the reformatting won't affect XML processing, it can be > terribly annoying (and space costly) if the code is being stored in a source > code repository that (essentially) is storing line based diffs. If every > time you touch the file it reflows it (or converts all line endings or > whatever) then that ends up with a much bigger than expected diff showing up > in change log at each stage. Yes, a potential issue, though lines by wouldn't be reflowed by default. - I guess similar problems apply if someone accidentally presses 'pretty-print' in the middle of a 'conventional' editing session (there must be editor options to prevent this happening too). Perhaps it would be worthwhile to be able to reinsert formatting that strictly conformed to a configuration file, or, simpler still, a sample XML file used as a model defining what formatting characters to insert when editing is finished? - Most formatting is regular, but I've notice that attribute names and values in particular sometimes align with preceding names/values, but sometimes skip back to a minimally indented position. Also some developers don't insert (quite deliberately) indentation for elements prior to the first xsl:template element, for example. Hopefully the commonly used diff tools treat XML comments as insignificant because there are some potential issues there too. Phil Fearon Qutoric > > > David > > > ________________________________________________________________________ > The Numerical Algorithms Group Ltd is a company registered in England > and Wales with company number 1249803. The registered office is: > Wilkinson House, Jordan Hill Road, Oxford OX2 8DR, United Kingdom. > > This e-mail has been scanned for all viruses by Star. The service is > powered by MessageLabs. > ________________________________________________________________________
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