Well, what do you mean by "equivalent to" here?
I mean this: <b> === ''' and probably this: </b> === '''
normal'''bold normal [ ... ] at the end of the line?
<p>normal<b>bold</b> ?????</p>
Yes at the end of the line.
As part of the Wiki Syntax Project we spent lots of time cleaning up excess line breaks (especially from newbies), and the sooner people realize line breaks are not required (or even helpful in most cases), the better.
How should we treat something like this: <b>bold'''????'''????</b>
Like this: <b>bold</b>????<b>????</b>
It would probably *not* make sense to treat that as equal to: <b>bold</b>????<b>????</b>
Why not? It makes perfect sense to me! ;-)
There is no such thing as a double-bold. There is no bold-bold, and there's no point in hiding that from people, or in pretending that such a thing exists by giving them two independent bolding mechanisms that refuse to talk to each other.
As a result of treating them differently, this renders wrong: ====================================== <b>bold<font style="a">'''????'''????</b> ====================================== (using r14547 *without* Tidy the line renders as "bold????????</b>", all in bold)
If it was this treated as this, it would render better: ====================================== '''bold<font style="a">'''????'''????''' ======================================
Even with that, it still leaves the entire line in bold because it doesn't close that font tag - so it's still not perfect, but it is better.
All the best, Nick.