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

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

On 7/11/2012 11:46 PM, John Cowan wrote:
> John P. McCaskey scripsit:
>> 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?
> No, there isn't.  What counts as the Right Thing depends on the consuming
> application.  The point of xml:space="preserve" is to persuade the
> consumer that the producer intends for the whitespace to convey important
> information.  The alternative is that the producer doesn't really care.
> So if the producer wants to make sure that whitespace is normalized,
> the best approach is to do its own normalization and then add
> xml:space="preserve" to prevent the consumer from doing its own thing
> with it.
The comes up in TEI (www.tei-c.org).

Encoding like the following is common both in practice and in the 
published specifications.

<persName>
     His Excellency
     <forename>Edward</forename>
     <surname>Smith</surname>,
     Shire of <placeName>Westerland</placeName>
</persName>

Clearly the encoder is expecting that during processing, space will get 
collapsed and leading and trailing space will be trimmed. The 
presumption is pervasive in TEI encodings. Just as the producer has a 
way to tell the consumer, "Please don't mess with spacing," TEI needs to 
have a way to say, "Yes, go ahead, please normalize."

Should this be a part of the TEI spec globally? a parameter set in a 
header? Should there be a tei:space that allows more values than 
xml:base does and with "normalize" being the default? How would that 
interact with xml:base?

-- John