Regarding (2): I have found both kinds of whitespace in desktop entry files. So, as a practical matter, both SPACEs and TABs need to be filtered out when reading these files.
On 4/24/20, Stephan Bergmann <sberg...@redhat.com> wrote: > I have three questions regarding > <https://specifications.freedesktop.org/desktop-entry-spec/desktop-entry-spec-1.1.html>: > > (1) #basic-format says "A file is interpreted as a series of lines that > are separated by linefeed characters." #value-types says "The escape > sequences \s, \n, \t, \r, and \\ are supported for values of type string > and localestring, meaning ASCII space, newline, tab, carriage return, > and backslash, respectively." Even though the former is about the > structure of the file itself while the latter is about the encoded > payload, it is confusing that one talks about "linefeed" while the other > talks about "newline" and "carriage return". Should "newline" read > "linefeed" (meaning U+000A LINE FEED) instead? > > (2) #entries says "Space before and after the equals sign should be > ignored". Does that mean just U+0020 SPACE, or also other kinds of > white space, like U+0009 CHARACTER TABULATION? > > (3) It is unclear exactly when the escape sequences mentioned in (1) > need to be used in string/localestring values: > > * "\\" apparently needs to be used at least whenever the following > character is one of "s", "n", "t", "r", or "\". But what about > sequences like "\a", does it render the file ill-formed, or is it an > accepted shortcut for the fully escaped "\\a"? > > * "\n" apparently needs to always be used (at least with the "newline" > vs. "linefeed" clarification from (1)). > > * "\s" (and maybe also "\t" and "\r"?) apparently needs to be used at > the very start of a string/localestring value (see (2)). But does it > also need to be used e.g. at the very end of such a value? (From common > practice, it appears that it at least doesn't need to be used for a > space somewhere in the middle of such a value.) > > * What about "\t" and "\r"? > > (These questions occurred to me when doing > <https://git.libreoffice.org/core/+/3f38a57a4ed8515dd145aea46ed697f101409c2f%5E%21> > > "Properly escape desktop file string values".) > > _______________________________________________ > xdg mailing list > xdg@lists.freedesktop.org > https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg > _______________________________________________ xdg mailing list xdg@lists.freedesktop.org https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg