[xsl] [RE:] Top Ten Java and XSLT Tips, #5

[Dimitre Novatchev <dnovatchev@xxxxxxxxx>]

> The new tip #5 in summary...
> 
> "Here is a summary of the techniques presented here:
> 
> "Use the " " character entity to represent non-breaking spaces. This
> works when the output method is "html", because most XSLT processors convert
> the entity to the literal characters " ". The XSLT specification does
> not mandate this behavior, but Xalan works this way. 
> 
> "Define an entity for " " and use that. This is effectively identical
> to the first approach, but may look nicer for stylesheet authors. It may
> introduce problems when certain tools mistakenly try to validate the
> stylesheet against the non-existent DTD. 
> 
> "Use <xsl:text disable-output-escaping="yes">&amp;nbsp;</xsl:text> as an
> alternative to "&#160;". This is particularly useful when the output method
> is "xml". The XSLT specification does not mandate that processors support
> disable-output-escaping. 

The last paragraph is not "particularly useful when the output method is 'xml'. The
result it will produce will not be a well-formed xml document, e.g. the following:

        <test>
            test1&nbsp;test2
        </test>

An xml parser (e.g. the one used in Saxon) will complain that "reference to
undeclared entity (found "nbsp")".

Cheers,
Dimitre Novatchev.

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