Michel Fortin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote on 9/18/06 at 6:26 PM: > But consider these two comments: > > <!------ Header -------> > > <!-- this -- or that --> > > Your proposal would change them to: > > <!--\-\-\-\- Header -\-\-\-\-\--> > > <!-- this -\- or that -->
My plain English rules were incomplete. I'm thinking the way it would work is that the opening `<!--` and closing `-->` would be treated separately; they're the "markers", the characters in between are the comment. However, XML forbids `--->` as a comment closer, so turning it into `\--->` would still generate invalid XML output. We need another rule that says that if a closing `-->` sequence is preceded by a `-`, there'll be a space inserted. So, <!------ Header -------> would turn into: <!--\-\-\-\- Header -\-\-\-\- --> > Beside not being particularly nice to read, a funny thing is that the > first hyphen of the `-->` delimiter has to be "escaped", as you say > it, which just seems strange. I think the backslash in this case > should be called a separator, not an escape character. The only other option is to allow people to create comments that won't pass through an XML parser. > I note that your backslash-"escape" method ensure that we are able to > reconstruct the comment in its original form. Any reason this would > be needed? If that's not needed then there is no need to escape > already existing backslashes. I can't think of a good reason, but I hate to destroy data. I figure just because I think think of a good reason now to make this transformation reversible doesn't mean I, or some other Markdown user, won't think of one eventually. > I think however that it is important is to keep things readable, and > I'd prefer using something less distracting than a backslash as a > separator. Using the same technique as shown above, spaces could be > used as the separator instead of backslashes. Regexes like this: [...] > and it would still be possible to rebuild the original by removing > exactly one space between each pair of hyphen. Only if we add an extra space if you already have a space between dashes in the input, right? I'm not opposed to using spaces instead of backslashes. > About commented scripts. This practice may not be recommended, it is > still widely in use and I think we shouldn't break it. And since the > Markdown syntax should not be processed within `<script>` tags, it > should not "fix" comments there either, it's that simple. Right, we shouldn't have to change anything for that. I see HTML comments in script tags all the time when I view source. I agree that it's wrong and bad practice for 2006, but it's definitely common. -J.G. _______________________________________________ Markdown-Discuss mailing list Markdown-Discuss@six.pairlist.net http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/markdown-discuss