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| Names | |||||
Names in OmniMark may refer to SGML/ XML constructs (such as elements, entities, attributes, and notations) or to OmniMark objects (such as variables, functions, and macros).
Generally, names are tokens beginning with a letter and containing letters, digits, hyphens ("-"), underscores ("_"), or periods ("."). (Note that a hyphen can be interpreted as part of a name, and therefore should be surrounded by white space when used as a minus sign.)
When heralded, a quoted string may also be used as a name. Quoted names allow names to contain characters that usually would not be permitted. This can be useful when you are generating an OmniMark program from another source. Heralding is the practice of preceding a variable name with a keyword indicating its type.
Names of SGML and XML objects must always be heralded because they are not declared in the OmniMark program. OmniMark variables, such as pattern variables, switches, counters, and streams may be heralded or not, as you choose. If they are not heralded, quoted strings cannot be used for their names. Because of the heralding, OmniMark can always determine the type of an SGML or XML object from the way in which its name is used, so having different kinds of SGML or XML objects with the same name would not cause problems. For instance, an element can have the same name as an attribute.
Different OmniMark variables may only have the same name if they are declared in different scopes. Once a function is declared, its name becomes unavailable as a name for other objects.
OmniMark puts no limit on the length of a name other than the 2,048 character limit on the length of a string.
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