Subject: [xml2rfc] Problem with generated boilerplate for HTML output

From: Spencer Dawkins <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2012 12:19:32 -0500

I'm using the experimental version of XML2RFC, and encountering some 
problems with generated boilerplate. When I select text as the output, 
it looks fine. When I select HTML as the output, I get

Status of This Memo
(deleted down to)

Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task 
Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working 
documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet- Drafts is at 
http:/&#8288;/&#8288;datatracker.ietf.org/&#8288;drafts/&#8288;current/&#8288;.

(deleted down to)

This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions 
Relating to IETF Documents 
(http:/&#8288;/&#8288;trustee.ietf.org/&#8288;license-&#8288;info) in 
effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these 
documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with 
respect to this document.

(deleted rest of output).

When I use the production version of XMLRFC, I get correct output on 
both text and HTML output.

Input file is available on request.

Thanks,

Spencer

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From: "Martin J. Dürst" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2012 10:43:00 +0900

> http:/&#8288;/&#8288;datatracker.ietf.org/&#8288;drafts/&#8288;current/&#8288;.

&#8288; is &#x2060; or U+2060, WORD JOINER. This is a zero width 
non-breaking space. It was introduced into Unicode in order to separate 
the zero width non-breaking space functionality from U+FEFF, which 
carried two functions, byte order mark and zero width non-breaking 
space. (If implemented correctly,) its only functionality is to suppress 
linebreaks where it's inserted.

The intent here is clear: Avoid line breaks in the middle of an URI. 
That is in principle a good idea. But it is a problem because 
copy-pasting said URI will not refer to the intended address.

The right thing (because we are talking about HTML) is to add some 
style, e.g. like this:

<a href='http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info' style='white-space: 
nobreak'>http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info</a>

(see http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/text.html#propdef-white-space and e.g. 
http://www.quirksmode.org/css/whitespace.html)

Of course, it would be even better if the style setting were moved to 
the stylesheet.

So this should be treated as a bug, and fixed. I hope you can submit a 
bug to the bugtracker.

Regards,   Martin.

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From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2012 08:55:09 +0100

On 2012-10-31 02:43, "Martin J. Dürst" wrote:
> ...

...but then there is no whitespace inside the element, so the 
declaration wouldn't have any effect, right?

Best regards, Julian

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From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2012 10:31:48 +0100

> http:/&#8288;/&#8288;datatracker.ietf.org/&#8288;drafts/&#8288;current/&#8288;.

Indeed. I have opened a ticket 
(<http://trac.tools.ietf.org/tools/xml2rfc/trac/ticket/62>), but 
optimally, everybody who tests this tool would do that him/herself :-)

Best regards, Julian

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From: "Martin J. Dürst" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 01 Nov 2012 13:54:03 +0900

Hello Julian,

> declaration wouldn't have any effect, right?

The name of the property may indeed be somewhat misleading. Fortunately, 
there isno need to be overly sceptical. The spec says:

nowrap
      This value collapses white space as for 'normal',
      but suppresses line breaks within text.

It says "line breaks within text", not "line breaks at whitespace", so 
it should be what we need. Testing with the attached file in the five 
major browsers I have at hand here confirms this nicely.

Regards,    Martin.