From: Peter Kirk (peterkirk@qaya.org)
Date: Thu Aug 21 2003 - 18:01:11 EDT
On 21/08/2003 13:26, Jim Allan wrote:
> Traditionally in c NBSP was not counted as white space. See
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vccelng/htm/eleme_2.asp
> for one reference.
>
> This may have been accidental, as c white space properties were
> defined with only the 7-bit ASCII character set in mind.
>
> But it would break current c programs if NBSP were defined as white
> space. Logically then, if we exclude NBSP, other "hard" spaces should
> also not be defined as white space.
>
> Essentially NBSP was treated by many word processors and text editors
> as simply a printing character, like any other printing character,
> with no special "spacing" properties. It was only an imitation of a
> space in appearance. Undefined characters in fonts might also appear
> as imitiations of space in many printing systems. That did not make
> them white space.
>
> Of course under Unicode specifications NBSP is expect to expand like
> SPACE for justification and so assumes some of the attributes of SPACE.
>
> For compatility I think it best to not include any of the non-breaking
> spaces as white space.
>
> Jim Allan
>
Not counting NBSP as whitespace may make it easier to include spacing
diacritics in patterns, if NBSP rather than space is used to to carry them.
-- Peter Kirk peter@qaya.org (personal) peterkirk@qaya.org (work) http://www.qaya.org/
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