I respect your points. If anyone else would like to add their opinion, I'd be happy to hear it, and if not, we can close the matter. We'll explore some alternatives or custom hooks on Org Social. Thank you for your time in this conversation :)
Andros Fenollosa > On 14 Dec 2025, at 20:35, Ihor Radchenko <[email protected]> wrote: > > Andros Fenollosa <[email protected]> writes: > >> Sorry, I was waiting for a response from the community. My mistake. > > Well. There was no response, so adding more elaboration could encourage > that response. But nope. Still nobody is bothered enough to reply. > I will mark this as explicit request for comments. > >> The official Org Syntax specification (orgmode.org/worg/org-syntax.html) >> defines headlines with a clear structure: STARS KEYWORD PRIORITY COMMENT >> TITLE TAGS. The definition of STARS is unambiguous: >> >>>> A string consisting of one or more asterisks... suffixed by a space >> character. The number of asterisks is used to define the level of the >> heading. Space character after asterisks is mandatory. >> >> Furthermore, TITLE is marked as (optional) in the same specification. >> This implies that a headline without a title should be syntactically >> valid, but the current implementation forces you to write * (with an >> invisible space at the end) to achieve this. > > Correct. > >> My change is surgical; it corrects the regex. Furthermore, it doesn't >> eliminate the current functionality but rather opens up the possibility >> of empty titles. It doesn't break compatibility. > > It eliminates the possibility to have > *** > without triggering a new heading. > Not a big deal, but potentially breaking for existing documents that > happen to rely on current syntax. > I used "***" (triple) intentionally, because it looks like separator > used in some books. > >> At Org Social we are working on including an artificial space in the >> titles, making it more complex to maintain due to user configurations >> that have hooks to clean up spaces at the end of lines. > > Applying such hooks in Org and even Markdown is a mistake. > In Markdown, double space, at the end of line is hard line break (akin > \\ in Org). > > Similar in yaml. > So, I do not really see this as an argument to change Org syntax. > >> Therefore, I kindly request that my proposed change be included. > > I generally agree that not requiring trailing space would be cleaner, > but, unless there is broader interest, I am not going to risk breaking > existing Org files. > > -- > Ihor Radchenko // yantar92, > Org mode maintainer, > Learn more about Org mode at <https://orgmode.org/>. > Support Org development at <https://liberapay.com/org-mode>, > or support my work at <https://liberapay.com/yantar92>
