Dots in tag names

[Roger Shuttleworth]

Hello Helen

The FM Structured Developer Guide says the following (page 144):

Element tags are case-sensitive, and they can contain white space but none of the following special characters:
( ) & | , * + ? < > % [ ] = ! ; : { } "

So it would appear that a period is allowed. However, if you are converting to XML (in which a period is also legal), be aware that the W3C recommendation is:

Avoid "." characters. If you name something "first.name," some software   may think that "name" is a property of the object "first."

Hope this answers your question.

Roger

Roger Shuttleworth
Technical Documentation
AV-BASE Systems Inc.
1000 Air Ontario Drive, Suite 200
London, Ontario
N5V 3S4
Tel. 519 691-0919 ext. 330
  _____  

From: Helen Borrie [mailto:helebor at iinet.net.au]
To: framers at lists.frameusers.com
Sent: Mon, 29 Nov 2010 04:22:18 -0500
Subject: Dots in tag names

Is it legal to use dots in tag names? 
  For example,
  
  part.title
  part.number
  chapter.title
  chapter.number
  body
  body.first
  
  and so on.
  
  These tags are for chapters in a large book of several parts.  It is being written in unstructured Framemaker but eventually, after publication, much of the content will be converted to structured FM (DITA).  I am setting out to "fix" a template that has a lot of tags with spaces in them.  Already I have encountered some problems with spaces in tag names during trial conversions.  I want to avoid "camel case" tags if I can.
  
  Is there any reason to avoid the dotted style?
  
  Thanks,
  Helen
  
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