Re: [xml2rfc-dev] RFC 7991 issue #37: Schema Issue, RFC 7991, In Section 2.12, <br>

[Julian Reschke <[e-mail]>]

On 10/1/2018 2:37 PM, Henrik Levkowetz wrote:
> Hi Julian,
> 
> On 2018-10-01 14:07, Julian Reschke wrote:
>> On 10/1/2018 1:31 PM, [e-mail] wrote:
>>> This captures an issue noted during implementation, also described in
>>> https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-levkowetz-xml2rfc-v3-implementation#section-3.1.2
>>>
>>> Specification: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7991#section-2.12
>>>
>>> ---
>>> In Section 2.12, <br>
>>>
>>>      A number of elements permits a mixed content model (see Section "Mixed
>>>      Content Model"): <li>, <blockquote>, <dd>, <td>, and <th>.  However,
>>>      when using the simpler of the two content schemas, two of them (<td> and
>>>      <th>) permit inline line breaks through the use of <br> elements; the
>>>      others do not.  This seems terribly arbitrary.
>>>
>>>      Recommendation:  Remove the <br> element completely.  Alternatively,
>>>                       permit it to be used all places that 'text' and non-
>>>                       block elements may be used (that is, in inline
>>>                       context).
>>>
>>>      Implementation:  The current version of xml2rfc renders <br> as a
>>>                       newline in all inline contexts.
>>> ---
>>
>> As far as I recall, we ended up with the limited use of <br> because
>> forcing a line break inside a table cell sometimes really is needed,
>> while otherwise it's not. I agree consistency is nice, but this may be a
>> case where the current approach is the right one.
> 
> Experience with the use of the v3 specification is of course very limited
> at present, but my awareness of the issue was triggered by attempts to use
> <br> by Miek, when he started adapting his pandoc2rfc tool to use the v3
> vocabulary.
> 
> I would say that even if <br> in running text would rarely be needed, the
> confusion Miek ran into is unnecessary, and limiting <br> to use within
> table cells, as opposed to removing it altogether or permitting it inline
> everywhere is more complex for both authors and formatters to keep track
> of and handle.
> 
> Hence my proposal.
> ...

Yes, that's the consistency argument. The other side of the argument is 
that we don't want people to control line breaks in floating text (at 
least that's my recollection), but we did agree that it's a necessary 
feature inside table cells.

Best regards, Julian