[Zope] inconsistency in tag argument syntax

[Jay, Dylan]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael Bernstein [mailto:mbernstein@profitscape.net]
> Sent: Saturday, October 09, 1999 05:31
> To: Jay, Dylan
> Cc: 'zope@zope.org'
> Subject: Re: [Zope] inconsistency in tag argument syntax
> 
> 
> "Jay, Dylan" wrote:
> 
> > > From: Michael Bernstein [mailto:mbernstein@profitscape.net]
> > >
> > > "Jay, Dylan" wrote:
> >
> > > > The problem is however that I can't see a backwards
> > > compatible way of fixing
> > > > this problem. Alternatives are
> > > > a) You could introduce a evaluate expression syntax like
> > > there is in sh
> > > > script. i.e. name="`myMethod()`". This however makes things
> > > more confusing
> > > > and unreadable.
> > > > b) Another possibility is to make all "non-expression"
> > > arguments become
> > > > expression arguments. This would break existing code and
> > > mean all string
> > > > constants look like name="'A name'" which is also not
> > > intuitive and messy.
> > > > This could be made cleaner by allowing syntax such as 
> name='A name'.
> > > > c) Or ignore the problem.
> > > >
> > > > I prefer option b).
> > > > What do other people think?
> > >
> > > If you want to provide dynamic atributes for all tags, the
> > > "&dtml-foo" entity
> > > syntax would be more appropriate, and would avoid breaking current
> > > implementations (I think). You would just have to assign the
> > > value of your
> > > expression to foo beforehand.
> >
> > Are you saying that
> > <dtml-let orderby="'aFieldName'">
> > <dtml-in aList sort=&dtml-orderby>
> > </dtml-in>
> > </dtml-let>
> >
> > will work? I don't think this is the case. From looking at 
> the code I saw no
> > place where this happens.
> 
> No, I'm saying that this (name="&dtml-orderby") would be a 
> better option than
> (b) for evolving to a situation where all attributes can be 
> dynamically
> assigned, and would avoid breaking existing code, constants 
> can continue to look
> like name="name".

Oh I see now. However big problem. With this scheme you can never have a
string argument that begins with &