Seeking clarification of Desktop Entry Specification

[Stefan Blachmann]

Regarding (2):
I have found both kinds of whitespace in desktop entry files. So, as a
practical matter, both SPACEs and TABs need to be filtered out when
reading these files.

On 4/24/20, Stephan Bergmann <sbergman at redhat.com> wrote:
> I have three questions regarding
> <https://specifications.freedesktop.org/desktop-entry-spec/desktop-entry-spec-1.1.html>:
>
> (1)  #basic-format says "A file is interpreted as a series of lines that
> are separated by linefeed characters."  #value-types says "The escape
> sequences \s, \n, \t, \r, and \\ are supported for values of type string
> and localestring, meaning ASCII space, newline, tab, carriage return,
> and backslash, respectively."  Even though the former is about the
> structure of the file itself while the latter is about the encoded
> payload, it is confusing that one talks about "linefeed" while the other
> talks about "newline" and "carriage return".  Should "newline" read
> "linefeed" (meaning U+000A LINE FEED) instead?
>
> (2)  #entries says "Space before and after the equals sign should be
> ignored".  Does that mean just U+0020 SPACE, or also other kinds of
> white space, like U+0009 CHARACTER TABULATION?
>
> (3)  It is unclear exactly when the escape sequences mentioned in (1)
> need to be used in string/localestring values:
>
> *  "\\" apparently needs to be used at least whenever the following
> character is one of "s", "n", "t", "r", or "\".  But what about
> sequences like "\a", does it render the file ill-formed, or is it an
> accepted shortcut for the fully escaped "\\a"?
>
> *  "\n" apparently needs to always be used (at least with the "newline"
> vs. "linefeed" clarification from (1)).
>
> *  "\s" (and maybe also "\t" and "\r"?) apparently needs to be used at
> the very start of a string/localestring value (see (2)).  But does it
> also need to be used e.g. at the very end of such a value?  (From common
> practice, it appears that it at least doesn't need to be used for a
> space somewhere in the middle of such a value.)
>
> *  What about "\t" and "\r"?
>
> (These questions occurred to me when doing
> <https://git.libreoffice.org/core/+/3f38a57a4ed8515dd145aea46ed697f101409c2f%5E%21>
>
> "Properly escape desktop file string values".)
>
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