Dennis Nichols writes:

.... <dtml-var "myDoc.description" fmt=structured-text>

.... And shouldn't the fmt specification tell how myDoc.description is to be presented instead of how it is stored? I agree with you that "fmt" should specify how the value should be formatted and not how it is stored.

For example, let's say I can choose to store description as plain text, as structured text, or as html. Regardless of how it is stored, I might want to ask for it as:

fmt=raw in case I want to edit it fmt=html in case I want to send it to a browser I fear, the "fmt" machinery will not know, how the value is marked up (plain/stx/html). This knowledge would be necessary for a format change.

Currently, I would say, this is not a task for the "fmt" argument but for the application. Dieter