[DOC-SIG] Comparing SGML DTDs

[Paul Prescod]

Fred L. Drake wrote:
>   The SGMLParser class from Grail is much better about SGML shortcuts
> in "strict" mode (the non-strict mode is intended to support Web-style
> HTML, i.e., invalid, and is not interesting for us).  It supports
> <emph/null/ end tags, <emph>empty</> end tags, and I think <>empty
> start tags</> are tolerably o.k., but I'm less convinced I understand
> the correct behavior, and haven't had any time to really validate it
> against SP.

I think it's easy to understand, but it's not a feature I use. We would
probably avoid it for our subset.

>   I remember reading something that indicated the null end tags should
> be discouraged.  Can you fill us in on the SGML community's current
> attitude on this?  Does this only apply in the presence of SGML
> editors like FM+SGML or should the avoidance also apply to manually
> applied & revised markup?

I don't know of a problem with null end tags, but I very rarely use SGML
tools other than nsgmls, jade and emacs. Still, as you have pointed out,
they are very easy to implement. Eric Naggum was always the most picky
about proper markup and I don't remember him saying anything against
NET. I guess you could run into a problem with <abc/1/2/, but you'd
probably notice you.

 Paul Prescod



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