Whitespaces
In the Internet Object format, whitespace refers to any character with a Unicode code point less than or equal to U+0020 (i.e., characters in the range U+0000 to U+0020). This range includes both non-printable control characters and common whitespace characters such as the horizontal tab (U+0009), newline (U+000A), vertical tab (U+000B), form feed (U+000C), carriage return (U+000D), and space (U+0020).
EBNF Definition
whitespace = ascii_whitespace | unicode_whitespace ;
ascii_whitespace = ? any character with Unicode code point U+0000 to U+0020 ? ;
unicode_whitespace = U+1680 | U+2000 | U+2001 | U+2002 | U+2003 | U+2004
| U+2005 | U+2006 | U+2007 | U+2008 | U+2009 | U+200A
| U+2028 | U+2029 | U+202F | U+205F | U+3000 | U+FEFF ;In addition to the characters in the range U+0000 to U+0020, the Internet Object format also includes characters in the Unicode whitespace category as whitespace. This includes characters such as the non-breaking space (U+00A0), em space (U+2003), and en space (U+2002), among others. Including Unicode whitespace characters can make it easier to work with text in languages that use non-Latin scripts, such as Arabic, Chinese, or Japanese.
It's also worth noting that the Internet Object format recognizes the zero-width non-breaking space (U+FEFF) as whitespace. This character is often used as a byte order mark (BOM) in Unicode-encoded documents.
Whitespace Characters
The following table lists the valid whitespace characters:
U+0000 to U+0020
Space, Line Feed, Carriage Return, Tab, Bell, etc.
Any character having charCode <=0x20 such as space. Includes ASCII space and control characters.
U+1680
Ogham Space Mark
Space used in Ogham scripts.
U+2000
En Quad
Space equal to the width of the lowercase letter "n".
U+2001
Em Quad
Space equal to the width of the uppercase letter "M".
U+2002
En Space
Space equal to half the width of the em space.
U+2003
Em Space
Space equal to the width of the em space.
U+2004
Three-per-Em Space
Space equal to one-third of an em space.
U+2005
Four-per-Em Space
Space equal to one-quarter of an em space.
U+2006
Six-per-Em Space
Space equal to one-sixth of an em space.
U+2007
Figure Space
Space equal to the width of a numeral character.
U+2008
Punctuation Space
Space used for punctuation.
U+2009
Thin Space
Space narrower than the regular space character.
U+200A
Hair Space
Very narrow space used for special purposes.
U+2028
Line Separator
Character used to separate lines in text.
U+2029
Paragraph Separator
Character used to separate paragraphs in text.
U+202F
Narrow No-Break Space
Non-breaking space narrower than the regular space character.
U+205F
Medium Mathematical Space
Space used in mathematical notation.
U+3000
Ideographic Space
Space used in East Asian scripts.
U+FEFF
Byte Order Mark (BOM)
Zero Width Non-Breaking Space, often used as a BOM.
Rules
Whitespace Insensitive: Internet Object is not whitespace sensitive, meaning that the parser ignores the whitespaces surrounding the values and structural elements
String Preservation: Any whitespace characters found within the values or strings themselves are preserved
Unicode Code Points: All whitespace characters are recognized based on their Unicode code points
Reserved Characters: All listed whitespace characters are reserved and should not be used as part of identifiers or keys
Best Practices
Enhance Readability: Use whitespace characters like spaces and tabs to format your document for better readability
Avoid Unnecessary Whitespace: While whitespace can improve readability, excessive or unnecessary whitespace can clutter the document
Consistent Formatting: Maintain a consistent use of whitespace throughout the document to ensure uniformity and ease of maintenance
Be Mindful of Invisible Characters: Some whitespace characters, like zero-width spaces, are invisible but can affect the parsing and rendering of the document
See Also
Encoding - Unicode character handling and encoding
String Values - Whitespace handling in strings
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