DTD Level 2 nit

iris!CN=Bruce_Kahn/O=Iris@uunet.uu.net (CN=Bruce Kahn/O=Iris@IRIS)

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Date: Wed, 5 Oct 94 16:08:26 EDT
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From: iris!CN=Bruce_Kahn/O=Iris@uunet.uu.net (CN=Bruce Kahn/O=Iris@IRIS)
To: Multiple recipients of list <html-wg@oclc.org>
Subject: DTD Level 2 nit
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Hello again,

  I hate to take up your as I realize you are probably quite busy (esp. if 
you get lots of questions from people like me).  In any case I wanted to ask 
you about an apparent inconsistancy with the HTML Level 2 DTD.  

  In particular, in 
http://www.hal.com/products/sw/olias/Build-html/7L9WSWBuWpF84aK.html the text 
states (pardon the formatting):
The empty <plaintext> tag terminates the HTML entity. What follows is not 
SGML. Instead, an old HTTP convention specified
that what followed was an ASCII (MIME "text/plain") body.

For example:

<PRE>
<plaintext>
<BR>0001 This is line one of a ling listing
<BR>0002 file from <any@host.inc.com> which is sent
</PRE>

The <plaintext> tag allows the rest of a file to be read efficiently without 
parsing. Its presence is an optimization. There is no closing tag. The rest 
of the data is not in SGML.

The above implys that no HTML parsing is done so the <BR> and </PRE> markers 
should not be interpreted.  However, in file 
http://www.hal.com/%7Econnolly/html-spec/L2index.html the Level 2 DTD 
description states:

PLAINTEXT

Required Parts
  <PLAINTEXT>characters...

All Parts
  <PLAINTEXT>characters...
</PLAINTEXT>

Allowed In Content Of...
  <HTML>

This implys that the PLAINTEXT marker can be used w/in the HTML scope and 
that it has an optional end marker.  This seems to be inconsistant with the 
first description.  While this is not from the "prefered" DTD, it is 
confusing (at least to me).  

What I would like to know is, just how should the <PLAINTEXT> marker be 
grok'd?  Should it be treated as a marker that means "Do no more HTML parsing 
from now on" no matter what or should it be treated much like the <XMP> 
marker except that it may or may not have an end marker??  I would appreciate 
it if you could clear this up for me.  Thanks

Bruce
INet: Bruce_Kahn@iris.com