Subject: Re: [xml2rfc] xml2rfc Digest, Vol 101, Issue 9

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2019 00:37:07 -0400

On 12.07.2019 19:44, Julian Reschke wrote:
>> ...
>> So then who is in charge to decide whether the day of month
>> is inserted?
>> 
>> 1) The author? (in that case, the citation libs would need to
>> drop the date for internet drafts)
>> 
>> 2) The processor? (in which case it'll need an extra signal
>> for April 1st RFCs)
>> 
>> This may have been not so important in the past. But in the
>> v3 world (AFAIU), there will be no manual post-processing
>> step anymore, so whatever the formatter emits will be what
>> people see... ...
> 
> Proposed extension:
> <https://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/rfc2629xslt.html#ext-rfc262
> 9.date>
> 
> Example:
> <https://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/rfc2616.html#RFC2324>

I think this (including the proposed extension) is being made
unnecessarily complicated and that 

   x:include-day" ("true", "false") 

as proposed does not do the right thing.

The system clearly knows whether it is generating I-Ds or RFCs.
It clearly has to in order to generate different boilerplate.
So, 

for RFCs:
(i) The front page is always without a day-of-month unless some
attribute or other flag is present (for the April 1 case).

(ii) References use whatever content and format the Style Guide
says what they use.  If it is "Month Year" then maybe an
attribute should permit an exception to that, but I doubt it
will be used very often if ever.

(iii) The Style Guide should be reviewed to make sure that a
reference to a document published in a language other than
English and whose preferred date is not in English (and perhaps
not even in Gregorian calendar) comes out the way the RFC Editor
wants it.  I am largely agnostic as to what that is, but it
should probably be sorted out and specified now because it may
affect the markup.  I would strongly encourage people to think
about this using an example that is not drawn from Latin script
or even a European script.

For I-Ds (and any other non-RFCs of interest):

(i) The front page is "month day, year".  I note that the
submission tool will reject an I-D submission if the day number
is not present.   If the xml2rfc developers want to provide
extra generality by including an attribute to suppress the day,
go for it, but I believe the only thing that could make that
necessary is automatic date (including day number) generation
when <date> is used without all of "year", "month", and "day"
attributes.

(ii) References simply use whatever authors supply.  If a day
number is specified, it appears.  If it isn't, it doesn't.  Note
that this principle is important for another reason and that is
at least one reason why we don't make up date values when the
<date> element is specified without attributes: some journals
publish only once a year and traditional books generally do not
specify even month information.  So what the author specifies,
whether it be a year, a year and month, or a year, month, and
day goes into the output.

(iii) Finally, I think that using different date formats in
different places (I'm talking about the format here, not whether
or not a day number appears) is probably an invitation to
trouble long-term.  Perhaps, with the likely exception of the
RFC header (and maybe footer), it is time to recognize that,
along with other changes for the new format, RFCs are becoming
"international" enough that it would be appropriate to go with
ISO 8601 dates and be done with it, both in whatever in
generated by markup and in Style Guide recommendations about any
dates that might appear in running text.   Or not.

best,
    john

---

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2019 10:19:50 +0200

> as proposed does not do the right thing.

It does allow me to produce the desired output while staying compatible
with what formatting have been doing for many years.

> It clearly has to in order to generate different boilerplate.

Yes.

> attribute or other flag is present (for the April 1 case).

That's exactly what the proposed flag does for the boilerplate.

> will be used very often if ever.

It would be needed when citing April-1st RFCs (*), and that's exactly
the proposal does.

(*) While looking at examples, I found that sometimes April 1st RFCs are
cited without the day information. Would be good to understand whether
there is a rule for that or not.

> or even a European script.

For bibliographical references, the date information essentially can be
prose already; AFAIU, there are no restrictions about what you can put
into the attributes (I even found a case where somebody used month="1
April" to force the day into the output).

> is not present.   If the xml2rfc developers want to provide

I don't think that is the case, at least if you also leave out year and
month.

> (ii) References simply use whatever authors supply.  If a day

Well, that's a breaking change.

> day goes into the output.

And this is already the case for month and year, so I'm not sure what
this has to do with the question of including the day or not.

> trouble long-term.  Perhaps, with the likely exception of the

Not only long-term.

> dates that might appear in running text.   Or not.

Yes. See
<https://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/rfc7992.html#document-information>
for what the current spec ways about the HTML format (although it omits
the case where no day is given).

Best regards, Julian

---

From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2019 14:25:56 +0200

Hi John,

Some comments on what the current v3 implementation does for
each of the points below:

> attribute or other flag is present (for the April 1 case).

With current v3, this is controlled by the RPC by leaving out or
filling in the day in the document <date> entry.  The renderers
render the date with/without day accordingly.

(This diverges from RFC 7998, which in Section 5.2.3
(https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7998#section-5.2.3) 
removes the RFC Editor's choice and sets out to enforce that all
date components always be specified.  Note that when the XML
format becomes the published archival format, it becomes more
important than earlier to retain the RFC Editor's freedom to
specify a publication date with or without date, or possibly even
month, in the XML date element.  See also: 
https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-levkowetz-xml2rfc-v3-implementation-notes-09#section-4.4.1 )

> will be used very often if ever.

Current v3 simply uses the elements provided in the reference
entry (which follows the front page dates for RFCs).

> or even a European script.

Current v3 has no support for alternative non-Gregorian dates
or non-latin date renderings.

(Adding this seems like a good idea, to me.)

> when <date> is used without all of "year", "month", and "day"

The current code to handle various combinations of missing <date>
components is complex, but if it was possible to get a draft through
submission with year and month, but without a day component, then
the current v3 will honour that lack of day, and render only year
and month.  What you say about a possible attribute to suppress
the day seems correct to me.

> day goes into the output.

This matches what the current v3 does, except that the current
specification is unworkable for some dates that are approximate.
For more on this see:
https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-levkowetz-xml2rfc-v3-implementation-notes-09#section-4.1.3.2

> dates that might appear in running text.   Or not.

The current v3 formatter does not do this.

(Personally, I have mixed feelings on this; as long as the local
numeric date format in use across the countries of the world vary as
much as it does (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_format_by_country),
it seems to me that Georgian date rendering probably should use
month names in order to be easily assimilated by human readers.)

Best regards,

	Henrik