[tei-council] xml:space

James Cummings James.Cummings at oucs.ox.ac.uk
Mon Feb 8 13:35:24 EST 2010


Martin Holmes wrote:
> <graphic url="stuff.jpg" xml:space="preserve"/>
> then (probably) more fool me.
> [Cue someone with a compelling use-case for @xml:space on <graphic/>.]

I've just spent the last few minutes trying to come up with some, 
but every time I do I think to myself 'that is really a <figure> 
not a <graphic/>' or thing 'no, that is @xml:space on the element 
containing <graphic/>' ... I give up.

I don't see that this is any more nonsensical than: <graphic 
url="image.jpg" xml:lang="fr"/> ... the @xml:lang does not apply 
to the thing the element points at (by its definition), but the 
content of the element itself, which is non-existent.

I sometimes think that I should write a blog post entitled: 
"Global Attributes Considered Harmful", because it annoys the 
heck out of me every time I notice a global attribute on some 
element (usually in the header) which doesn't make sense with the 
semantics of that element. In most cases it is because to my mind 
the attribute in question should be global-underneath-text rather 
than truly global.

-James


More information about the tei-council mailing list