Re: [xml-dev] Heterogeneous XML editing environments - how do youcope?

[Jonathan Robie <jonathan.robie@redhat.com>]

Robert Koberg wrote:
>>> If I had a tool that would reliably pretty-print the XML source without 
>>> trashing any important whitespace formatting,
>>>       
>
> tomaytoe, tamahtoe, solanum lycopersicum
>
> Is whitespace like this important:
>
> <p>blah blah
> blah blah blah
> blah blah</p>
>
> ? Doesn't it seem incorrect? But it's probably nice for the vi/emacs
> user. But why use stone tablets?
>   

Not sure I get your drift. When you're writing technical documentation 
with source code fragments, whitespace matters. Whitespace *is* 
significant here:

int main() {
    Connection connection;
    Message msg;
    try {
      connection.open("127.0.0.1", 5672);
      Session session =  connection.newSession();

  //--------- Main body of program 
--------------------------------------------

      //  Subscribe to the queue, route it to a client destination for
      //  the listener.

      session.messageSubscribe_(queue="message_queue", 
destination="listener_destination");

      //  Tell the listener to listen to the destination we just
      //  created above.

      Listener listener(session, "listener_destination");
      listener.listen();

  
//-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

      connection.close();
      return 0;
    } catch(const std::exception& error) {
        std::cout << error.what() << std::endl;
    }
    return 1;  
}


Most users don't want to see this, and it no longer compiles because the 
// comments rely on end of lines:

int main() { Connection connection; Message msg;  try { 
connection.open("127.0.0.1", 5672);  Session session =  
connection.newSession();  //--------- Main body of program 
--------------------------------------------  //  Subscribe to the 
queue, route it to a client destination for //  the listener.  
session.messageSubscribe_(queue="message_queue", 
destination="listener_destination");  //  Tell the listener to listen to 
the destination we just //  created above. Listener listener(session, 
"listener_destination"); listener.listen(); 
//----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
connection.close(); return 0; } catch(const std::exception& error) 
{std::cout << error.what() << std::endl; } return 1;  }


Whitespace may be less significant for tomatoes than it is for source 
code listings.

Jonathan