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RE: DAVENPORT: Indent equivalent for DocBook


Norm Walsh wrote:
> I don't know of one, but on the topic of indentation, I have to say,
> "be aware of whitespace".
>
> <para>
> My own style has always been to write things like this.
> </para>
>
> But in mixed-content elements (any element that can contain
> character data is "mixed-content" as opposed to
> "element-content" where only elements are allowed), that
> carriage return may be significant. SGML has some interesting
> rules about this, but XML does not. In XML, that space is
> significant.

Yech. I've thought about it for a few minutes, and I am unable to
conceive of a reason why making that whitespace significant would
be a desirable behavior in a markup language (except, of course, for
elements like <literallayout> where that's the whole point of the
element).

So the question, obviously, is "Why?".

> <para>I'm now trying to train myself to type like this.
> </para>

See? You need an indent-like program -- it would pre-proc your document,
and format the sgml consistently. :-)

thanks,
steve

--
Steve Greenland | Ellipsys, Inc. | greenland@ellipsysconsulting.com

Me: "You type 'win' to start up Windows 95."
A Friend: (in awe) "How come you know all those commands by heart? Did you
get a list of them somewhere?"


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