Re: "special" spaces in Texinfo parsing and output

[Karl Berry]

    * in Docbook remove all the ^L as they are not allowed in XML.
    ...
    * in XML keep it everywhere.  In attribute escape \ as \\, ^L as \f and
      end of line as \n.

If they're not allowed in any XML, then why can we have them at all in
our TexinfoXML output?

    * in HTML ignore form feed when they are mixed with ignored spaces (for
      example in @footnote{ ^L blah} @email{^L ggg@@truc, ^L machin ^L}.
      Otherwise protect it as a numerical entity
    * In Info output the form feeds wherever they are, including in ignored
      spaces.

Anyway, as you saw from the commit, below is what I added to the manual.
Is it ok?

Thanks,
k

---------
Form feed (@kbd{CTRL-l}) characters in the input are handled as
follows:

@table @asis
@item PDF/DVI
In normal text, treated as ending any open paragraph; essentially
ignored between paragraphs.

@item Info
Output as-is, as part of the normal text stream.

@item HTML
Written as a numeric entity except contexts where spaces are ignored;
for example, in @samp{@@address@hidden ^L address@hidden, the form feed is
ignored.

@item XML
Keep them everywhere; in attributes, escaped as @samp{\f}; also,
@samp{\} is escaped as @samp{\\} and newline as @samp{\n}.

@item Docbook
Completely removed, as they are not allowed.
@end table

As you can see, because of these differing requirements of the output
formats, it's not possible to use form feeds completely portably.