Re: Empty headline titles unsupported: Bug?

[Nicolas Goaziou]

Hello,

Sebastian Miele <sebastian.miele@gmail.com> writes:

> Sebastian Miele <sebastian.miele@gmail.com> writes:
>>David Masterson <dsmasterson92630@outlook.com> writes:
>>> Sebastian Miele <sebastian.miele@gmail.com> writes:
>>>> Currently org-syntax.org says that "TITLE can be made of any
>>>> character but a new line.  Though, it will match after every other
>>>> part have been matched."  This does not reflect the currently
>>>> effective behavior that "* :t:" is a headline with title ":t:" and no
>>>> tags.
>>>
>>> Can you describe what should happen in a parser grammar (ie. BNF)?  If
>>> not, I would tend toward rethinking the structure of the Org file so
>>> that it can be described in a grammar.  Having a good grammar for Org
>>> files will promote it's acceptance beyond Emacs.
>>
>> [...]  However, the way I understand the above quote from
>> org-syntax.org (which is, I think, in the end preferable) [...]
>
> To be clearer: Preferable to the way it currently is implemented.
>
> In the headline "* :t:", the above quote from org-syntax.org (at least
> in my way of reading it) means TAGS ":t:"

This is your way of reading it, but it's unfortunately not the sole way
to look at it. Also, I'm sympathetic to Ihor Radchenko's desire to see
consistent code in that area. But being consistent means we favor one
interpretation over the other.

We can do that, of course, but I can't see which one is better. The one
you prefer might be more common, but it is also nicer to fix, by adding
some space-like character in the headline. Fixing it the other way
requires the same space after the headline. Of course it's not a big
deal either way. The whole thread isn't, actually.

Currently, what Org does in this situation is unimportant, because the
behaviour is simply undefined, which is, IMO, tolerable. If we decide to
define it, it needs to be documented.

Regards,
-- 
Nicolas Goaziou