Re: [Docutils-develop] Nested markup

[David G. <go...@py...>]

[Mark Nodine]
 > Parenthetically, the implementation and controversy surrounding it
 > at least seems to have pushed the discussion beyond its previous
 > high-water mark.

Yes, that's the great value of open discussions like this.

 > Let me see if I understand Beni's proposal: Any time you have a
 > ``\ ``, the next character(s) should be interpreted as starting a
 > markup, if applicable.  When so interpreted, the space that would
 > otherwise be inserted into the output stream is silently removed.
 > Is that it?

Not quite.  ``\ `` is a disappearing escape sequence, independent of
any adjacent markup.  However, since a backslash is allowed after an
end-string, and whitespace is allowed before start-strings, ``\ ``
serves to separate them.

 > It seems like the only times it is needed is when you have two
 > different markups that begin with different numbers of the same
 > character and at the beginning of the markup.  For example::
 >
 >   *\ **Strong** within emphasis*
 >   `\ `Interpreted (no role)` within interpreted`
 >   `\ ``Inline literal`` within interpreted`
 >
 > Am I looking at this correctly?

There may be a requirement for disambiguation between end-strings,
once nesting is allowed::

     *\ **Strong within emphasis***
                                  ^

A recursive inline parser may find the end-strings ambiguous at the
point indicated.  This is where something like ``\'`` may come in
handy.

-- 
David Goodger    http://starship.python.net/~goodger
For hire: http://starship.python.net/~goodger/cv
Docutils: http://docutils.sourceforge.net/
(includes reStructuredText: http://docutils.sf.net/rst.html)