[Docutils-users] Re: Dash-transformation

[Felix W. <Fel...@gm...>]

David Goodger wrote:

> Felix Wiemann wrote:
>
>> * I'd suggest adding built-in substitution definitions for "|--|" to
>>   en-dash and "|---|" to em-dash.
>
> I don't know about inserting a set of predefined substitution
> definitions into the parser.  But we could certainly include a set of
> substitution files in Docutils.  Then the author could do:
>
>      .. include:: <dashes.txt>

I'm not sure if the benefit is big enough enough to justify the effort
of adding such a feature and maintaining a set of 'standard'
substitution files.

Probably it's best to just require the document author to include his
own substitution file(s).

>> IMO the trailing space should be made omittable.
>
> We'd still need a leading space.

I thought the leading space was optional; seems I got the current syntax
wrong...  8-)

> But this gave me an idea.  In conjunction with a change to the
> "unicode" directive, substitutions could become context-sensitive.  We
> could add a "trim" option to the "unicode" directive, as follows:
>
>      .. |--| unicode:: U+02013 .. EN DASH
>         :trim:
>      .. |---| unicode:: U+02014 .. EM DASH
>         :trim:

Looks nice.

But what about multi-line unicode definitions?  Recognize the option iff
the last line is ':trim:'?  Not too elegant but it could work.

> And other characters can be used as markup delimiters, not just
> spaces.  For example, hyphens can be used.

I think that would be over-engineering.  We don't *really* need it, do
we?

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