(My own impression is that that using white space as a delimiter probably works better for machines than humans---and I think I helped prove that by
I think you got that the wrong way around? I can give well known (in computing circles) examples of where whitespace has been used as delimiters and it has caused lots of problems.
Unix makefiles use space and tab to mean different things (unfortunately they can look the same!) - thats a classic.
MAP files output from compilers/linkers delimit fields by whitespace. Worse-still many fields are optional depending on linker options. As a result your parser has to be very complicated so that it can work out (or guess) which fields it actually read. How many people parse MAP files? Not many, but anyone writing debugging tools does.
Then if you look at the W3C and their work with HTML/XML/other markup languages, they also go out of their way to ensure whitespace is not used for anything other than a separator - it never marks the start of another field or alternate field usage.
I don't have any concerns over Barry's overall proposal. I just have a concern that whitespace is not used for anything other than making ABC easier to read (in whatever field it is in) for humans. The presence or absence of whitespace shouldn't have any significant meaning.
Thanks to all of you that replied and for being polite, I did wonder if I was going to get roasted for objecting :-)
Stephen -- Stephen Kellett Object Media Limited http://www.objmedia.demon.co.uk RSI Information: http://www.objmedia.demon.co.uk/rsi.html To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
