[pmwiki-users] Keep() function documented

Joachim Durchholz jo at durchholz.org
Wed Jul 6 10:18:00 CDT 2005


Patrick R. Michaud wrote:

> On Wed, Jul 06, 2005 at 04:35:32PM +0200, Joachim Durchholz wrote:
> 
>> Patrick R. Michaud wrote:
>> 
>>> On Wed, Jul 06, 2005 at 11:00:00AM +0200, Joachim Durchholz
>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> ... It's just that this forces constructs that may span several
>>>>  lines into a *very* early stage of processing (whether these 
>>>> constructs are nestable or not)
>>> 
>>> False. Notably, PmWiki's implementation of block markups
>>> (including nested lists, tables, etc.) all happen at the
>>> line-by-line level, which is currently fairly late in the
>>> processing cycle.
>> 
>> ... More importantly, you can't do nested tables (unless the docs
>> are outdated).
> 
> No -- the decision to not support nested tables was and is a conscious 
> design decision on my part, and not because of any limitations
> imposed by the line-by-line implementation of the markup algorithm.  
> I could've just as easily created a nested table algorithm, but I 
> deliberately chose not to because I didn't like the way it complicates 
> the markup from an authoring perspective.

OK, I'll take your word for that.

I also agree that disallowing nested tables for usability reasons is a 
good idea for a wiki that's intended to be simple.

Not all nested markups are difficult on the user though (witness 
(:if:)), and some PmWikis are installed for a sophisticated audience, so 
IMHO it would be a good idea if writing recipes for nested markup were easy.

> (The proof that nested structures can be handled line-by-line is
> demonstrated by the various list markups, which properly nest even
> in the face of different nesting levels and nesting types.)

These markups generate nested HTML, which isn't trivial but a different 
issue altogether. I've been talking about nested PmWiki markup; stuff like
   (:if:) ... (:if:) ... (:ifend:) ... (:ifend:)
Incidentally, (:if:) comes before 'split' and makes use of the ability 
to do multi-line matches :-)

Well, maybe nestable PmWiki markup should indeed come early.

Regards,
jo



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