Re: [Docutils-users] bug: anonymous hyperlink ending emphasis

[Beni C. <cb...@te...>]

David Abrahams wrote on 2003-07-14:

> David Goodger <go...@py...> writes:
>
> > Plus, "\ " doesn't work before end-strings, since the space prevents
> > the end-string context.
>
> Why should it prevent the end-string context? it's really part of a
> "non-space".
>
Consider this: ``*\ *text1*\ *``.  Indeed, it would be nice to be able
to write in such symmetrical manner.  However this would conflict with
the existing use of ``\ ``: separating an end string from a following
start string for character-level markup: ``*text1*\ *text2*``.  Now,
how do you tell the difference between the last ``*`` in the first
example being an end-string and the ``*`` before ``text2`` in the
second exmaple being a start-string?  You can't use the fact that in
the first example an open emphasis was pending, since one might want
nested character-level markup: ``*\ *text1*\ *text2**``.  There is one
thing you can use: whether it's followed by whitespace (or
equivallents).  This would work but would mean that start/end-string
recognition in this case relies only on the context after the string,
instead of requiring specific contexts on both sides as it always does
now.  In other words, ``\ `` would become a neutral token, accepted
both where now we require whitespace and where we require
non-whitespace.  It sounds workable (although not pleasant to
implement) but is probably more fragile than we would like.

-- 
Beni Cherniavsky <cb...@tx...>

If I don't hack on it, who will?  And if I don't GPL it, what am I?
And if it itches, why not now?  [With apologies to Hilel ;]