Re: [xml-dev] What is @xml:space about?

["John P. McCaskey" <groups@johnmccaskey.com>]

On 7/10/2012 11:30 AM, Michael Kay wrote:
> On 10/07/2012 16:00, Michael Kay wrote:
>> xml:space="preserve" says that the author of the document believes 
>> all white space to be significant; xml:space="preserve" says that the 
>> recipient can do whatever he likes.
> The second one, of course, should have been xml:space="default" - MK

Is there an established way for an XML document to announce to 
downstream processors what "default" processing -- trim, collapse, 
pre-line, nowrap, etc. -- was assumed in the encoding? Many XML 
documents seems to assume text will be normalized, but a way to formally 
say so would be, it seems, good.

Should the author of the XML vocabulary define a <space> parameter to be 
included in a header section of the XML file? or say to encoders and 
application authors, "Applications should normalize text and encoders 
can assume they will."

Or is there already some convention on what xml:space="default" implies 
will happen?

-- John