[Doc-SIG] Not escaping the escape leaves no escape ;)
Tony J Ibbs (Tibs)
tony@lsl.co.uk
Tue, 14 Aug 2001 13:52:49 +0100
> Then it's a documentation problem, because the quickref tells
> us otherwise.
Oh, quite likely - the quickref is being written by me, and in its
writing I have discovered at least one fundamental misconception of a
LARGE kind that I had about reST (and a stupid one at that) - I wouldn't
be at all surprised if there were small things around the edge. David's
document is the final reference, for all of that.
Anyhoo, I personally won't entirely trust the quick ref until I can run
the left hand side of each table through DPS/reST and generate
(something sufficiently close to) the right hand side...
<<you-gets-what-you-pays-for-and-you-takes-your-choice'ly>>
<fx:looks again>
Hmm. Where is the (current version of) the quick reference broken on
this? Version 0.4 now says that::
\*escape* \'with' "\\"
will produce something like::
*escape* 'with' "\"
which matches what David said (indeed, it's his suggestion). This is a
better example than before because it suggests *so* much more lurking
behind the scenery to be understood... (i.e., if one doesn't understand
it, one has to think about it).
It's only rule 7 I worry about - in the context of the quickref it needs
rewriting, because it doesn't say enough - for instance, one can do::
``This is a \ and it doesn't need escaping``
which isn't clear therein. What rule 7 is addressing, I think, is::
``We have a backslash at the end\``
and that's confusing to me (David - rule 7 could do with a *little* more
exposition in the spec, to make clear what is going on for us people
with a head cold). But then I find r"" strings confusing too, when they
(don't) have a backslash at the end.
Tibs
--
Tony J Ibbs (Tibs) http://www.tibsnjoan.co.uk/
"How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive
continuity of ducks." - Dorothy L. Sayers, "Gaudy Night"
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