Re: speaking of spaces and formatting....

[apharris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Adam P. Harris)]

Tony Graham <tgraham@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> At 24 Aug 1998 21:19 -0400, Adam P. Harris wrote:
>  > I have a question.  I'm using docbook-stylesheets and jade.  I've
>  > noticed, with the RTF backend, that
>  > 
>  >   <para>Text
>  > 
>  > does not mark up the same as
>  > 
>  >   <para>
>  >   Text
>  > 
>  > Namely, in the latter case, the RTF has a space (" ") kinda indenting
>  > the first word of the sentance ("Text").
>  > 
>  > Is this a bug in the SGML parsing?  A bug in docbook-stylesheets?  Or
>  > proper behavior?  Do I really have to make sure that text follows
>  > <para> tags without any space?
> 
> The Record End immediately after the start tag should be ignored by
> the parser, and it should not appear in the output, even as a space
> character.  If you can, see section 7.6.1 of ISO 8879, section 2.5 of
> the SGML FAQ Book, or page 27 of the Concise SGML Companion.

Excellent referencing here, way to cite chapter and verse!  I'll have
to buy one (or both) of those books.

> I've tried processing the equivalent of your second example, and it
> came out okay.  Is is possible that you had a space after the <para>
> tag or that the document was authored under a different operating
> system that used a different character sequence to indicate ends of
> lines?

To clarify, yes, it was ("|" is left margin, i.e., character 0):

   |  <para>
   |  Text
    ^^
    Note spaces.

Notwithstanding the technical issue of standards compliance, I would
submit that a reasonable behavior in this case is to *not* put a space
additionally indenting the new paragraph, started by "Text".

I'm not sure how Norman feels or what the general consensus here on
the issue is.  Maybe I have to hack up my own copy of the stylesheets
to have paragraphs use 'process-children-trim'?

.....A. P. Harris...apharris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx<URL:http://www.onShore.com/>


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