[Doc-SIG] reST block quotes

[Beni Cherniavsky]

On 2002-12-15, fantasai wrote:

> Beni Cherniavsky wrote:
> >
>  > Then note that "-- " is the standard singnature separtor.Since then it's
>  > alone on the line, this is not an issue, just a point to document.
>  >
>  > Also note that I use " -- " for a long dash -- probably a LaTeX-induced
>  > habit; I saw some other people writing so.Stupid word wrapping can well
>  > put "-- " at the beginning of a line in running text.Again not an issue,
>  > just document that "-- " must come after an empty line (?).
>
> Would using three dashes solve these problems?
>
Yes but there is no big need.  These are not real problems, they only make
the recongnition rules more subtle.

>  > About email reading, also note that ">>> " becomes ambiguos between
>  > doctest blocks and some email clients that compact nested "> " quoting by
>  > omiting the spaces.
>
> Yes, that is true. That means either quoted blocks would
> have to be implemented as an option, defaulting to 'off'
> for backwards-compatability, or at least one space must
> be required between quote characters.
>
Another option, not completely automatic but easy to use:

 +##
 +## Any bogus quoting style is recognized as such by a line before and/or
 +## after the paragraph the contains only the quoting string (which must
 +## be non-alphabetic, I don't see a good way to accomodate "FOO> ").
 + Nested quotes are recognized, generalizing the current mechanism.
 +

Trouble begins when breaking nested quotes (assume I wanted to place a
non-quoted comment between ...). and Nested... -- they won't be recognized
as nested.  In such (all?) cases, demand a space between the quoting
levels ("+ >#").

There is an ambiguity with lists => outlaw empty list items.

Diverectives can be implemented for declaring certain quoting style to
have some meaning (e.g. "# " == Python comments).

> Requiring at least one space before the quote character
> might not be a bad idea. It improves readability IMO.
>
But most mailers don't do it and manually converting is a huge pain.

>  > Also the "On Someday, Random Writer wrote:" is probably an
>  > attribution too.
>
> It is, but it's not practical to parse that since
> people use so many different formats. It would have
> to be treated as a paragraph, which really isn't
> that bad.
>
Agreed.

> > Now how do you handle a quote that's broken in the middle and resumed?
>
> As multiple blockquotes. How would you do it with the
> current syntax?
>
OK.  Just take care that different parts of an interrupted quote are at
the same nesting level (space compation is evil in this respect and should
probably be outlawed).

-- 
Beni Cherniavsky <cben@tx.technion.ac.il>