On 1/31/08, Jim Wilson <wilson.jim.r(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Would the change also include something to handle the
case where a
one-liner definition contains an intended literal colon? For example:
;Term: : Definition
In that case, the user really probably intendes a colon to trail
"Term" in the resulting <dt>, but today that colon gets prepended
instead as a literal to the Definition underneath.
I don't think you can unambiguously state the user's intention there.
It could just as easily be:
;Ratio: 3:1
or something. If I'm not mistaken, this is the only place in the
syntax where a single character other than pipe has meaning in the
middle of plain text like this. Ambiguity is almost unavoidable.
Anyway, I have, as requested, found examples of trailing colons. These
from Wikiversity:
Bloom Clock_2006 data.txt:;''[[w:Clematis virginiana|Clematis
virginiana]]'' (De
vil's darning-needle):
Bloom Clock_2006 data.txt:;''[[w:Rudbeckia fulgida|Rudbeckia fulgida]]''
(Black-
eyed Susan, Orange coneflower):
Help_Wiki markup examples.txt:;[[w:newline|Newline]]:
Help_Wiki markup examples.txt:;Dates:
Help_Wiki markup examples.txt:;Example:
Help_Wiki markup examples.txt:;typewriter font:
Help_Wiki markup examples.txt:;Show special character codes:
Wikiversity_Register Language of Interest.txt:;Links to existing Wikiversity Sit
es:
(underscores in filenames often mean colons, so for example the fourth
example is the text ";Dates:" in [[Help:Wiki markup examples]])
Searching en wikisource, 460 examples turn up:
; Article 7 (Education). :
; Article 9 (Freedom of association). :
; Article 10 (Privacy of letters, posts, and telecommunications
amended 24 June 1968). :
...
;THE GRAND JURY CHARGES:
;Coro:
;Chorus:
;Estrofa I:
...
;GOLDBERG, SPECIAL TRIAL JUDGE:
;NORMA HOLLOWAY JOHNSON, District Judge:
;Epilogue:
;Editions:
; Speakers:
;What Happens if the Three Elements Are Not Received Together:
;Renewal Registration:
...
In Wikibooks there are 770 examples.
;Characteristics of the ''petiole'':
;Arrangement of the veins ('''venation'''):
;Add:To add two numbers, we take the modulo-2 of the result. Here is a
truth table for an add operation:
;Multiply:Multiplication in modulo 2 happens normally, and no new
operator needs to be defined. Here is the truth table for a
multiplication operation:
;Target Audience:
;Scope:
;Prerequisites:
IMHO, all of these ought to be rendered with a literal final colon.
There's no reason to think the author deliberately intended a
meaningless character to render as ... nothing.
Steve