Subject: [xml2rfc-dev] The &RFC.number; entity

From: Jim Schaad <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2017 11:32:39 -0800

This entity has disappeared in the V3 vocabulary.  I would like to have the
RFC Editor tell us if this is a used item that needs to be added back to the
vocabulary in some way.  (Hopefully not as an entity.)

Jim

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From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2017 00:14:30 +0100

On 2017-12-09 20:32, Jim Schaad wrote:
> This entity has disappeared in the V3 vocabulary.  I would like to have 
> the RFC Editor tell us if this is a used item that needs to be added 
> back to the vocabulary in some way.  (Hopefully not as an entity.)
> 
> Jim

By definition an entity definition can not be part of the vocabulary.

But you can always define it yourself, although I don't see how that's 
better than just putting in the RFC number verbatim.

Best regards, Julian

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From: Jim Schaad <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2017 16:43:25 -0800

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Julian Reschke [mailto:[email-masked]]
> Sent: Saturday, December 9, 2017 3:15 PM
> To: Jim Schaad <[email-masked]>; 'RFC Editor' <rfc-editor@rfc-
> editor.org>
> Cc: [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: [xml2rfc-dev] The &RFC.number; entity
> 
> > This entity has disappeared in the V3 vocabulary.  I would like to
> > have the RFC Editor tell us if this is a used item that needs to be
> > added back to the vocabulary in some way.  (Hopefully not as an
> > entity.)
> >
> > Jim
> 
better
> than just putting in the RFC number verbatim.
> 
> Best regards, Julian

It may not be part of the vocabulary, but applications can have predefined
entities that they recognized and process.  My understanding is that this is
how HTML works with such items as &nbsp;.  I would far prefer to type that
into my documents than to type &#xA0;.  I am never going to remember what
the second one is but can easily understand the first.  This is something
that you get implicitly with your XSLT transformation to HTML as you can
just leave them in there and they will get interpreted correctly.  This is
not true with some of the other tools that will need to be able to
understand these items.

I am more than happy in general for entities to go away, and would cheer if
the DOCTYPE element was tagged as being an error in a V3 document.

I would propose that all of the standard HTML entities defined in it's DTD
be included by reference and be recognized as entities that all of the RFC
Editor tools should recognize. 

Jim

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From: Martin J. Dürst <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2017 11:46:57 +0900

On 2017/12/10 08:14, Julian Reschke wrote:
>> added back to the vocabulary in some way.  (Hopefully not as an entity.)
>>
>> Jim
> 

Not if you don't know it yet. Which is the case as long as it's a draft.

The typical example for this is some registration template, where you 
e.g. have something like:

Security Considerations:
    See Security Considerations Section of RFC &RFC.number;.

This is much easier than putting "RFC XXXX" there, and then have a "Note 
to the RFC Editor" saying to please replace the XXXX in RFC XXXX with 
the actual number.

Regards,   Martin.

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From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2017 06:50:47 +0100

> into my documents than to type &#xA0;.  I am never going to remember what

HTML is not XML.

You can have any entity you want in XML, but you need to define  it 
somewhere. Otherwise the document isn't well-formed XML.

> the DOCTYPE element was tagged as being an error in a V3 document.

Why? It's optional, and always was. You can use it to define your own 
entities.

> Editor tools should recognize.

That's impossible unless we give up on the vocabulary being XML.

Best regards, Julian

---

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2017 06:51:58 +0100

> to the RFC Editor" saying to please replace the XXXX in RFC XXXX with 

Simply write

    See Security Considerations of this document.

...and IANA will do the right thing when putting things into the registry.

Best regards, Julian

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From: Alice Russo <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2017 12:22:01 -0800

Hi Jim,
We don't use that entity for inserting the RFC number. It's OK to not have that functionality.

Thanks,
Alice

On Dec 9, 2017, at 11:32 AM, Jim Schaad <[email-masked]> wrote:

> This entity has disappeared in the V3 vocabulary.  I would like to have the RFC Editor tell us if this is a used item that needs to be added back to the vocabulary in some way.  (Hopefully not as an entity.)
>  
> Jim