docbook: Thread: Line length

Other than simple readability in a vim session, is there a reason for me to 
be concerned about line length in a DocBook document? Is there a limit of 
any kind?

I am aware that, in most cases, whitespace does not matter and so I freely 
split up stuff among multiple lines. However, I have noticed that tags like 
"computeroutput" suddenly make whitespace relevant and I am being forced to 
create lines that are much longer than 80 characters. Is this, or can this 
be, a problem in any way?

Thanks,


-- 
Rodolfo J. Paiz
####@####.####

On Mon, 2003-10-27 at 10:02, Rodolfo J. Paiz wrote:
> Other than simple readability in a vim session, is there a reason for me to 
> be concerned about line length in a DocBook document? Is there a limit of 
> any kind?

I've never run into any kind of limit, and I've seen some rather long
ones cross my path, particularly in the example you provided below.

> I am aware that, in most cases, whitespace does not matter and so I freely 
> split up stuff among multiple lines. However, I have noticed that tags like 
> "computeroutput" suddenly make whitespace relevant and I am being forced to 
> create lines that are much longer than 80 characters. Is this, or can this 
> be, a problem in any way?

I know that with graphics, no matter how large the picture, it will
display in the html (but not necessarily for all types of output - I
believe pdf would probably have an issue with line length, since it's a
little pickier).  But in html, having something much wider than your
screen is often a nuisance for most people, and I would imagine is best
avoided whenever possible.

I'm a little confused when you say you're being forced to create lines
longer than 80 characters.  Is it due to the length of the text itself?
Maybe if you provide an example we can be more sure.

Thanks,
Tab

-- 
Tabatha Marshall
Web: www.merlinmonroe.com
Linux Documentation Project Review Coordinator (http://www.tldp.org)
Linux Counter Area Manager US:wa (http://counter.li.org)

At 02:23 10/28/2003, Tabatha Marshall wrote:
>I'm a little confused when you say you're being forced to create lines
>longer than 80 characters.  Is it due to the length of the text itself?
>Maybe if you provide an example we can be more sure.

No, it's because of the markup; I meant >80 chars in the editor window in 
which I work. For example:

<computeroutput><prompt>[root@adan root]# </prompt><userinput>cp 
/etc/mail/sendmail.mc /etc/mail/sendmail.bak</userinput></computeroutput>

...works out to roughly 138 characters if I counted right. I would have 
assumed that _if_ there was a limit to line length in the editor it would 
have been at least 254 chars per line, so still nowhere near a problem, but 
rather than guessing I figured I'd ask.


-- 
Rodolfo J. Paiz
####@####.####