comma or semicolon in geo (was: [uf-discuss] Operator: Microformat detection for Firefox 2)

[Brian Suda]

On 12/16/06, Andy Mabbett <andy at pigsonthewing.org.uk> wrote:

> It might be best of parsers accepted either; since some schemes use
> comma (e.g. ICBM), others semicolon (e.g. geotag)

At the moment the ';' semicolon should be used. There is an FAQ about
it on the hCard-faqs page[1]. I'll update the hcard cheatsheet page
accordingly.

The ';' comes from the vCard RFC, because hcard is modeled after vcard
the syntax was just reused. One issue with using a ',' instead is that
a comma sets off a 'list' of properties, this can be seen in RDATE and
others. And (if for some reason) there was a need for plotting 2
dimensional figures, my first thought would be to just have a list of
lat;lon: <abbr title="12;34,56;78,90;12">...</abbr> so i would prefer
to stick with a single lat/long delimiter and continue using just the
';' to separate values.

-brian

[1] - http://microformats.org/wiki/hcard-faq#How_does_GEO_work_with_ABBR

-- 
brian suda
http://suda.co.uk