[Doc-SIG] verse construct (was Re: [Docutils-develop] Parsingoddness)

Ueli Schläpfer usc@ieee.org
10 May 2002 13:34:00 +0200


[Tony]
> Hmm. I don't really see::
> 
>     .. literary::
> 
> working as a directive. Although it's a kindof neat concept!
> 
> For what little it is worth, here are some random ideas::
> 
>     .. freeform::
>     .. keeplines::
>     .. nowrap::
> 
> The last is inelegant but might be the most evocative.

Agreed (and others seem to have too [#1]_).  Don't name a
construct/directive after a specific use case -- leave it to the
user's creativity to apply it wherever it is suitable (other than the
ones the construct was invented for)!

.. [#1] See, for example, Paul Moore's post of May 10 in this thread.

A few more possibilities for names::

  .. obeylines::
  .. lines::
  .. linewise::

I've seen the first one in a TeX posting somewere, and I came up with
``.. linewise::`` when thinking of a suitable (and close) translation
of the directive to German.

And for completeness, here's my ranking:

1. ``.. keeplines::`` or ``.. obeylines::``
2. ``.. linewise::``
3. ``.. nowrap::``
4. ``.. lines::``
5. ``.. freeform::``

Ueli