Re: [xwiki-devs] Rules for Escaping in Links in XWiki Syntax 2.0 and 2.1

On 09/17/2010 01:46 PM, Denis Gervalle wrote: I apologize if what I am saying has been already discussed and discarded (I didn't follow too much the discussion about escaping) Anyway, looking at how BASH works, why can't we use single quotes to delimit escaped regions where the literal value of each character has to be preserved? * In BASH we have: $A="Hello"; echo "$A" yields Hello $A="Hello"; echo '$A' yields $A (though you are not allowed to use ' inside double quotes) * In XWiki we could have [[label>>interwiki:wikipedia:'Here we can put whatever @#:>?!<?']] or [[label>>'in:ter:wiki?!?':wikipedia:'#$%@^%...^^^Hello']] So the rule would be simple: If you have a (part of the) reference/link that contains special characters, put it between single quotes. And the only character you would need to escape is \'.

>> There are 2 set of rules: >> - For entity references >> - For link references >> >> Entity References >> ============== >> >> The rules are (independent of the XWiki Syntax): >> - if you need a \ in any part of the reference then you need to double it >> with \\ >> - For a : in a space name it's \: >> - For a . in a page name it's \. >> - For a @ in an attachment name it's \@ >> - For a ^ in an object name it's \^ >> - For a . in an object property name it's \. >> >> Link References >> ============= >> >> For XWiki Syntax 2.0 >> ---------------------------- >> >> The rules are: >> >> - if the link reference points to a document and you want a ?, #, @ or \ in >> any part of the reference you need to escape them with \?, \#, \@ or \\. >> >> Note that when resolving a link reference to a document the link reference >> escapes are first unescaped and then the entity reference is unescaped. For >> ex for: [[label>>my\.page]] will result in a link to a page named "my.page" >> and [[label>>my\?page]] to "my?page". >> >> - if link reference points to a mailto then no escaping is performed at >> all. Thus [[label>>mailto:john\@whatever.org]] will generate in HTML<a >> href="mailto:john\@whatever.org">john\@whatever.org</a> >> - same for link refs to URLs >> - For link to attachments, only the entity reference escape is performed, >> no additional escape is done for the link reference. >> - For link to interwiki, if the interwiki path needs a @ then it must be >> escaped with \@. Same for the interwiki alias. Example: >> [[label>>what\@ever@wiki\@pedia]] >> >> For XWiki Syntax 2.1 >> ---------------------------- >> >> The rules are: >> >> - if the link reference points to a document and you want a ?, # or \ in >> any part of the reference you need to escape them with \?, \#, or \\. >> - if link reference points to a mailto then no escaping is performed at >> all. >> - same for link refs to URLs >> - For link to attachments, only the entity reference escape is performed, >> no additional escape is done for the link reference. >> - For link to interwiki, no escaping is performed at all (and ":" is not >> allowed in the interwiki alias). Example: >> [[label>>interwiki:wikipedia:what\\ever]] will generate an interwiki path of >> what\\ever >> >> Open Questions >> ============= >> >> Do we want to allow \\ in any link references (mailto, attach, interwiki, >> url, etc) and unescape it to \ or should we keep the rules defined above? >> > > Well, it is really too complex, I cannot imagine that I should explain that > to an end-user. My feeling is that we need to be able to write a simplified > rule like this: > > "In link reference, \ (backslash), : (colon), . (dot), @ (atsign) and ^ > (circumflex) may have a special meaning, and may need to be escaped by > preceding them with backslash when used literally. In doubt, you may always > escape the special characters in link reference if you need them > litterally." > > Obviously, the implementation could be a clever mix of the your initial > rules and support "over" escaping. > I would really like to see that as the rules for 2.1 syntax unless there is > strong reasons not to do so that I am not aware of. > > WDYT ? > > Denis > > >> Thanks >> -Vincent >>