[x3d-public] MFString quotes

[Joe D Williams]

> For instance, in XML all attribute values must be quoted, unlike 
> HTML

Yeah, so XML can be hard for X3D MFStrings. When web3d started with 
X3D XML, XML didn't really know about any MF fields. MFString 
equivalents are complicated when user wants legal html double and 
single quotes and apostrophies in the displayed text.

X3D cannot allow the html legacy unquoted MFString and still function 
as expected. So that is only the first of the reasons why X3D must 
stick as close as possible to XML and XHTML rules and not allow the 
the legacy htmlized unquoted string in any <x3d > ... </x3d> syntax. 
Leonard has pointed to the most simple solution for simple encodings 
that don't allow mulitple data strings like x3d uses for urls and 
other MFString fields listing multiple strings that use coombinations 
of htmllegal single or multiple quotes to enclose the MFString and 
separate the individual SFStrings, and also character entities and 
escaping.

So, for these string cases, like Leonard suggests, maybe allow an 
optional construction that doesn't use MFString form and, if it is an 
X3D MFString, then allow listing each or the the strings individually 
as elements? However I might fear that is only a slippery slope to 
allowing other MFfields (like translation, for instance) to be broken 
up and maybe even end up with ultimate ridiculous simplications that 
lose strong type checking (like translation becoming a wrapper for 
individual x y z element content).

Thanks and Best,
Joe



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Yves Piguet" <yves.piguet at gmail.com>
To: "Don Brutzman" <brutzman at nps.edu>
Cc: "Andreas Plesch" <andreasplesch at gmail.com>; "X3D Graphics public 
mailing list" <x3d-public at web3d.org>; "Leonard Daly" 
<Leonard.Daly at realism.com>
Sent: Wednesday, March 15, 2017 8:08 AM
Subject: Re: [x3d-public] MFString quotes


>> On 15 Mar 2017, at 15:35, Don Brutzman <brutzman at nps.edu> wrote:
>>
>> Short summary:
>>
>> a. The abstract specification is unambiguous.
>
> Imo, XML applications like the XML encoding of X3D shouldn't 
> restrict XML, or they shouldn't claim to be XML. So 19776-1 should 
> be modified.
>
>> b. Different file and language encodings have similar yet different 
>> rules about escaping quotes.
>> c. We have no control over external equivalences, since user agents 
>> decide independently (e.g. " and ")
>
> I agree.
>
>> d. Round-tripping is difficult/tedious but possible in every case. 
>> Repeatable code blocks can help.
>
> Usually possible for a given implementation. If you think 
> round-tripping is useful, one should refer to a canonical XML 
> representation. See https://www.w3.org/TR/xml-c14n
>
> Same for JSON. Same for Classic (standardized pretty-printed?)
>
>> I think one relaxation might be possible where an unquoted MFString 
>> value might be treated as a single SFString value in the array.
>
> I'd rather not. The more permissive, the more difficult it will be 
> to fix design oversights later if there are. XML isn't nice to write 
> by hand anyway, one shouldn't try to accept sloppy code.
>
> For instance, in XML all attribute values must be quoted, unlike 
> HTML. Being lenient here would go against this design choice.
>
> Best,
>
> Yves
>
>
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