Re: Attribute type NMTOKEN

Michael Kay (M.H.Kay@eng.icl.co.uk)
Mon, 11 May 1998 10:28:38 +0100

>A possible misunderstanding here: a NMTOKEN itself can't
contain
>whitespace, but the attribute value specification, the
quoted thing
>after the equals sign, can: so
><my-element my-name-token=" WHITESPACE">
>*is* a valid NMTOKEN attribute specification. The NMTOKEN
in this
>example is only "WHITESPACE", though; the leading (and
trailing)
>whitespace is trimmed.

You're right of course, but I had a devil of a job
discovering why! This is one example of the spec being
terribly unhelpful: it says quite clearly (in section
3.3.1): "Values of type NMTOKEN must match the Nmtoken
production...", and then qualifies this in section 3.3.3, by
saying in effect: "the value I was talking about in section
3.3.1 isn't the "attribute value" defined in section 3.1 as
you might have thought, rather it's the "normalized
attribute value" defined as follows..."

Next time round could we please have a bit more rigour in
the spec!?

Mike Kay