Whitespace question

[John E. Simpson]

At 09:39 PM 08/03/1999 -0400, Randy Bryan wrote:
>Suppose I want to set xml:space to "default" for all of
>the character data.  Is this valid?
>
><?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes" xml:space="default"?>

No. The xml:space is an attribute, i.e. it applies to *elements*; the XML
declaration is not an element. (Those things that look like attributes --
the version and standalone document declaration -- are more accuratly
termed pseudo-attributes.)

>If it's not allowed, how would I go
>about setting "default" for all of the character data
>in the text?  

Set xml:space="default" in your top-level element. It's inherited by all
descendant elements unless they explicitly set it to xml:space="preserve".

That said, why would you want to explicitly set it to the default in the
top-level element (or, even if it were legal, in the XML declaration)? That
would be redundant. The only place xml:space="default" makes sense is in
the context of an ancestor element with xml:space="preserve". Like:

	<poetry xml:space="preserve">
		<epigraph xml:space="default">
			On the occasion of the poet's
			crackup.
		</epigraph>
		<stanza>
			[etc.]
		</stanza>
	</poetry>

All the stanza elements would have their whitespace preserved. Only the
epigraph element would follow the processor's default behavior, e.g.
(maybe) stripping out extraneous blanks and newlines. 

==========================================================
John E. Simpson            | The secret of eternal youth
simpson at polaris.net        | is arrested development.
http://www.flixml.org      |  -- Alice Roosevelt Longworth

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