"Brett Kail" <junkaddr@[...].com>  wrote:

| I'm generally unfamiliar with SGML, and I was unable to find a spec 
| online.  

Sadly, ISO copyright is in the way.  There is this:

 http://crism.maden.org/consulting/pub/sgmldefs.html

but it's missing the text of the standard.

| Where can I find one that discusses the PE rules of SGML?

Offhand I don't know of any, sorry.  You could try the search facility in
the Cover Pages.

|> | <!ENEITY %pe " ">
|> | <!ELEMENT%pe;e ANY>
|> 
|>  Permissible in SGML - maintains integral character of relevant parameters.
|>  Probably okay in XML.
| 
| This one (and others you mark as "probably ok") make sense to me as well, 
| but is there anywhere we can go to get an authoritative answer?

I'd go with Section 4.4.8 "Included as PE" in the XML spec, especially
this:

: [...] the intent is to constrain the replacement text of parameter
: entities to contain an integral number of grammatical tokens in the DTD

and argue that zero is also an "integral number" :-)

Basically, PEs are a text substitution mechanism, so anything that doesn't
result in invalid text in the appropriate parsing context should be okay.

|>  Note that the integral token restriction doesn't apply when using PErefs
|>  to paste together the content of replacement text in what is effectively a
|>  single parameter in a PE declaration.  (In fact, that is how you might
|>  "construct" tokens if needed.)
| 
| Do you mean like so?
| 
| <!ENTITY % begin '<!ENTITY % value "str'> 
| <!ENTITY % end 'ing"> '>
| <!ENTITY % all '%begin;%end;'> 
| %all;

Yes.  This "works".  As Bob Foster points out, %begin;%end; doesn't.


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