Character escaping or refurbish Kolab format definition towards XML syntax?

[Martin Konold]

Hi,

http://kolab.org/doc/kolabformat-2.0rc5-html/c183.html#COMMON-IN-ALL-TYPES

"4.1. Common Fields In All Types

categories (string, default "") - The categories is a comma separated list. 
There is no fixed set of categories in this format. The clients are free to 
choose."

I think the above definition is missing the case when a category itself does 
contain the comma character.

Do we in general want to introduce a Kolab format specific escape character in 
order to deal with these kind of problems in the Kolab format?

On the other hand I think that using a comma seperated list is not really how 
xml ist supposed to work.

Why not create a list of categories by allowing:
<category>cat1</category>
<category>cat 2, with comma and spaces</category>
<category>cat 3 with escaped XML characters <,>,& 
'"</category>

So do you favour an escape character approach or the alternativ XML approch 
which allows multiple <category> elements?

Personally I am in favour of leaving the old <categories> using the old syntax 
but declaring it deprecated. In addition a new optional element 
{<category><category>} is added which might appear multiple times.

This would allow us to remain fully backwards compatible while solving the 
escape issue and becoming more standards compliant.

Opinions welcome!

Regards,
-- martin

-- 
e r f r a k o n
Erlewein, Frank, Konold & Partner - Beratende Ingenieure und Physiker
Sitz: Stuttgart - Partnerschaftsregister Stuttgart PR 126
http://www.erfrakon.com/
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