Re^4: XML::Fling begone? (ctrl, utf-8)


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Re^4: XML::Fling begone? (ctrl, utf-8)

by Aristotle (Chancellor)

on Dec 31, 2004 at 15:08 UTC ( [id://418545]=note: print w/replies, xml )

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in reply to Re^3: XML::Fling begone? (ctrl, utf-8)
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FYI, here's Tim Bray's explanation of the reasoning for that:

The only characters that XML dislikes are ASCII C0 control characters such as form-feed, vertical-tab, and those wonderful things like EOT and DLE and NAK and SYN, which have exactly zero shared semantics from system to system; which is exactly why they're not in XML.

Update: just to be clear, I am not supporting the argument — nor rejecting it. My only actual experience is limited to systems with very little variation: Unix vs Windows on the same hardware platform. I haven't even worked on MacOS X. So I don't know enough to make any argument here.

Makeshifts last the longest.

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Re^5: XML::Fling begone? (shared semantics)
by tye (Sage) on Jan 01, 2005 at 05:55 UTC

Gee, some people use form feed for different things. We should be sure to prevent them from sending form feeds to each other. We'll save the world so much confusion. We'll be heros.

Bob, that data you sent in XML needs a page break in the middle.

We use a form feed for that, Jim.

Gosh, so do we.

I'm glad the designers of XML 1.1 appear to be a bit more clueful.

Perhaps if Tim Bray had heard of an obscure thing called "ASCII" he might not produce such whoppers as "exactly zero shared semantics from system to system". And even if such were true, it'd still be a lousy reason to disallow them -- perhaps XML should require all tag names to exist in the Esperanto dictionary since most words have zero shared semantics from language to language. Sheesh.

- tye

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