[pmwiki-users] Re: Re: Modified (:markup:)

[chr at home.se]

On Sun, 20 Mar 2005, Patrick R. Michaud wrote:

> Well, it's more than that -- we're using it to pass *unparsed* arguments.
> That's important.  And it's not "sudden" -- we've done similar things
> in several Cookbook recipes -- for example the Beautifier, CodeBlock, and 
> SourceBlock recipes.

It's sudden for me, I've never used any of those recipes ;-)

> > In addition, I'm very uncertain about how the whitespace is really
> > interpreted by (:markup:), i.e. what whitespace is really significant?  
> 
> I never intended (:markup:) to be so precise that whitespace would be
> an important issue.

Ah... although I think it should be precisely defined at least, since it'd
be very convenient to be able to document (almost?) all markup using
(:markup:).  That's seems solved further down so it's not an issue though.

> Er, no, if only because the order of operations is misplaced here.  The
> current (:markup:) directive takes place very early in the sequence --
> even before [=...=] is processed.

Oh... ok, I see. That's not exactly apparent btw...  I assume (:markup:) 
is done before (:include:) as well? These other recipes, are they also 
handled before [=...=]?

> And I *really* dislike the idea of directive markups that span multiple
> lines in a single directive, as in
> 
> (:markup [=
> * Here's an example list
> * more list
> =]:)

Mileage varies I guess... to me it's not that different from:

	[[This is the link text \
	  -> http://long.and.complicated.uri/much/too/long/in/fact]]

but that doesn't mean I like it of course.

> > Here's a relatively simple example...
> >   (:markup:)You can use [=[==]...=] to escape things.(:markupend:)
> > 	    ------------  --  -----------------------
> > 	   "You can use [=...=] to escape things."

Hmm... if (:markup:) is parsed before [=...=], couldn't the above simply
be written as:

	(:markup:)
	You can use [=...=] to escape things.
	(:markupend:)

That'd be very convenient... or is '[=...=]' parsed later on in this case?  
If it is parsed, I guess we could illustrate (:markup:) like this:

	(:markup:)
	You can use
		(:markup:)
		Here is '''bold''' text.
		(:markupend[==]:)
	to illustrate markup.
	(:markupend:)

> This example illustrates almost perfectly the problem with nested [=...=]'s
> of any sort -- there are a lot of people who would've quite reasonably 
> expected the above to produce:
> 
>     "You can use [==]... to escape things."

I used to expect that, but long/hard experience with pmwiki has tought me
otherwise... ;-)

> Ultimately I don't know that there are many cases where I want or need
> to be able to do (:markup:)...(:markupend:) all on a single line.

I'd be fine with requiring (:markup:) and (:markupend:) to be on lines by 
themselves.

> I'm thinking that (:markup:) should be restricted to being on a line by
> itself, with any trailing whitespace (including the newline) stripped
> before processing the contents.

Sounds good. That also clearly states how whitespace will be "handled".

> Then we can also allow (:markup:) with a single escaped string on the
> same line.

Eh... with "the same line", do you mean:
	(:markup:) [=Bla bla [[link]] bla=]
or
	(:markup:) [=
	Bla bla ...
	=]
?

> If you really want to allow non-escaped strings on the same

No need. I guess it's consistent with e.g. (:table:) ... (:tableend:) 
that also have to be on lines of their own?

> > I have a feeling this might conflict with earlier cases where I've written
> > similar text just in order to escape things properly... and in addition I
> > get the feeling we're opening a huge can of worms with this... might work
> > though.
> 
> It still works because [=...=] processes exactly the same as before.
> I've already implemented and tested it on pmwiki.org.

For instance, I've sometimes written "Wiki[==]Word" to prevent a word 
from being treated as a wiki word (this was with pmwiki v1). What happens 
on a line like this:

	The Pm[==]Wiki [[engine]] is useful and allows Wiki[==]Words.

Would [[engine]] become a link or not?

/Christian

-- 
Christian Ridderström, +46-8-768 39 44               http://www.md.kth.se/~chr