Re: [O] [ox-publish] handling of white space in arguments of macros, named arguments?

[Nicolas Goaziou]

Hello,

Stefan Vollmar <address@hidden> writes:

> However, the second change is caused by our use of MACROs: we find
> them very helpful for generating HTML content using raw HTML templates
> with placeholders.
>
> This used to work (for generating http://microformats.org/wiki/hcard 
> information) a month ago:
>
> {{{mhead-hcard(
> Dr. Stefan Vollmar,
> Stefan,
> ,
> Vollmar,
> Dr.,
> stefan-vollmar.jpg,
> stefan-vollmar.html,
> ...)}}}
>
> with this type of macro definition:
>
> #+macro: mhead-hcard #+html: <div id="contact" class="vcard"><p><table 
> style="margin-left:0;margin-right:auto"><tr style="text-align: 
> left;margin-left: 2em"><td style="padding: 5px"><img width="200px" 
> class="photo" src="images/$6" alt="$1" /></td><td><a style="color:blue;" 
> class="url" href="http://www.nf.mpg.de/cv/$7";><div class="fn n"><span 
> class="honorific-prefix">$5</span> <span class="given-name">$2</span>[...]
>
> but now the white space around the arguments is no longer stripped and/or 
> other effects cause "<" and ">" in the macro to be exported as "&lt;" etc.
>
> This version seems to work fine:
>
> {{{mhead-hcard(Dr. Stefan
> Vollmar,Stefan,,Vollmar,Dr.,stefan-vollmar.jpg,stefan-vollmar.html,Head
> of IT Group\,<br/>Physicist\, Software
> Developer,address@hidden,it,+49 221 4726-213,+49 221 4726-298)}}}

I removed trimming around arguments a few days ago, since it wasn't an
explicit specification for macros. Therefore, newline characters are
inserted in your template, which means that the HTML keyword doesn't
affect all lines of the generated code and, as a consequence, some "<"
are exported as "&lt;".

I think all newline characters should be replaced with a whitespace
character in macro arguments. Indeed, macro templates are only one line
long but unwanted "\n" could be inserted by paragraph filling in
arguments.

I also don't mind trimming arguments again, provided this is added as an
explicit behaviour and there is no opposition to it.

> Yes, I could use it as a workaround, but I would prefer something
> similar to the above version for improved readability - maybe by
> adding "line continuation markers" like "\"? Obviously, more complex
> macros (the one above has 12 individual arguments) are less than ideal
> anyway and the best solution (by far) would be "named arguments".
> Maybe there already is a better way of using (HTML) templates?

I think you really shouldn't use macros for that. For example, consider
adding the following in your buffer (or, better, in the Library of
Babel):

  #+name: mhead-hcard
  #+header: :var cname="Complete Name" gname="Given Name" photo="photo.jpg" 
prefix=""
  #+header: :var web="web-page.html"
  #+BEGIN_SRC org :exports none
  <div id="contact" class="vcard">
    <p>
      <table style="margin-left:0;margin-right:auto">
        <tr style="text-align: left;margin-left: 2em">
          <td style="padding: 5px">
            <img width="200px" class="photo" src="images/$photo" alt="$cname" />
          </td>
          <td><a style="color:blue;" class="url" 
href="http://www.nf.mpg.de/cv/$web";>
            <div class="fn n">
              <span class="honorific-prefix">$prefix</span>
              <span class="given-name">$gname</span>
  ...
  #+END_SRC

Then, you insert a hcard with:

  #+call: mhead-hcard(cname="Dr. Stefan 
Vollmar",gname="Stefan",prefix="Dr.",web="stefan-vollmar.html",photo="stefan-vollmar.jpg")
 :results html


Regards,

-- 
Nicolas Goaziou