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XML apparently cannot be used for general text markup: whitespace gripe
- From: "Chad Jones" <chad at avatarsoft dot com>
- To: <XSL-List at lists dot mulberrytech dot com>
- Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2002 16:06:29 +0200
- Subject: [xsl] XML apparently cannot be used for general text markup: whitespace gripe
- Reply-to: xsl-list at lists dot mulberrytech dot com
Hi there,
I've noticed a lot of xml-derived web pages out there have screwed up
whitespace (words crammed together or an incorrect space before ending
punctuation).
My conclusion is that blocks straight text (such as paragraphs) cannot be
further marked up with XML without screwing up spacing.
For example, can anyone get this simple document into HTML without either
removing required spaces or adding inappropriate spaces?
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<book>
<par>
Is his name really <first>John</first> <last>Doe</last>?
</par>
</book>
Either you will end up with:
"Is his name really JohnDoe?"
which is wrong, or:
"Is his name really John Doe ?"
which is also wrong.
Of course, this is a very simple example. In real-life situations bad
whitespace causes really nasty problems. Of course, I'm pretty new to XSL
so maybe I just can't read the directions. Here's my XSL example:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xsl:transform xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform";
version="1.0">
<xsl:output method="html"/>
<xsl:preserve-space elements="*"/>
<xsl:template match="/">
<html><xsl:apply-templates/></html>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:transform>
Does anyone know of a work-around for this common problem?
TIA
Chad Jones
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