how to handle pre-formatted text

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  • David Schwartz
    #1

    how to handle pre-formatted text

    I've got some pre-formatted text and I'm not sure how to encode it in
    my xml to preserve its formatting. Any help would be appreciated!

    TIA,
    David
    Tags: None
    • Joseph J. Kesselman
      #2
      Re: how to handle pre-formatted text

      David Schwartz wrote:
      I've got some pre-formatted text and I'm not sure how to encode it in
      my xml to preserve its formatting. Any help would be appreciated!
      How is the formatting currently recorded?

      If by "pre-formatted" you mean it contains spaces and tabs and
      line-breaks -- that's no problem; basic XML considers all of that
      meaningful content and will retain it. Individual XML applications may
      discard some of this whitespace, perhaps based on schema and perhaps
      based simply on their understanding of how that particular kind of XML
      document should be interpreted... but that's a matter of how the XML is
      used, not what it contains.

      Exception: Whitespace and line breaks in attribute values will be
      normalized. See the XML Recommendation for details.

      If a particular tool doesn't retain information you need, it may not be
      the right tool for your tasks, or you may not be using it right. To take
      a specific example: XHTML, when displayed by a browser, will be
      processed as HTML was and most whitespace will be discarded unless it is
      in element specifically designed or marked to retain the existing
      formatting. But that's the browser's behavior, and conventions of the
      use of the XHTML markup, not XML.

      If by "pre-formatted" you mean something else, please clarify.

        Comment

        • Peter Flynn
          #3
          Re: how to handle pre-formatted text

          David Schwartz wrote:
          I've got some pre-formatted text and I'm not sure how to encode it in
          my xml to preserve its formatting. Any help would be appreciated!
          It depends on the features provided by whatever schema/dtd you are using
          (if any). Some (eg DocBook) provide markup specifically designed to
          contain data that requires the preservation of linebreaks, for example.
          Others (eg XHTML) provide a container (pre) but the recommendation about
          how to handle it is in the spec, not the markup.

          Without a schema/dtd, the only facility is a CDATA section within some
          suitable element, but this is intended for the preservation of otherwise
          parsable *markup* characters, not space-and-newline formatting, so you'd
          need to specify or convey to anyone using it exactly what they should or
          should not do with it.

          ///Peter
          --
          XML FAQ: http://xml.silmaril.ie/

            Comment

            • Joseph J. Kesselman
              #4
              Re: how to handle pre-formatted text

              As far as XML is concerned, CDATA sections are just an alternative to
              character-by-character escaping -- in other words, they're just syntax,
              not semantics. They won't change how whitespace is interpreted, and they
              may not even be visible to applications and/or may not be preserved
              through stages of XML processing. So that approach isn't worth pursuing.

              If you want to preserve whitespace, you need an element that your
              particular application code doesn't process by discarding whitespace. As
              I said, this is an application issue, not an XML issue per se... though
              XML can provide some hints that the application may or not respect, such
              as the xml:space attribute.

              See http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/#sec-white-space

                Comment

                • David Schwartz
                  #5
                  Re: how to handle pre-formatted text

                  Thanks for the responses. The content is just some CSS style
                  definitions.

                  For some reason, pasting the formatted content into the tool I'm using
                  (Turbo XML) resulted in it being pretty messed up. Editing the content
                  in a normal text editor to ensure that everything's lined up properly
                  led to the desired result. Also, the changes seemed to be preserved
                  after going back into the xml editor.

                  FYI, I'm just placing content within the xml tag into <pre></preHTML
                  tags.

                  Thanks again for the input,
                  David

                    Comment

                    • Joseph J. Kesselman
                      #6
                      Re: how to handle pre-formatted text

                      David Schwartz wrote:
                      For some reason, pasting the formatted content into the tool I'm using
                      (Turbo XML) resulted in it being pretty messed up.
                      That sounds like a question of how cut and paste are working with your
                      tools -- how much non-text data the cut is capturing, and how good Turbo
                      XML is at figuring out how to discard it and just take the plaintext
                      view. Contact its authors and ask them...

                        Comment

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