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If the spec is specifying a computer language (HTML, CSS, IDL, JSON, JavaScript, WGSL, SQL, XML etc.) then as part of the syntax like delimiting the class names in the class attribute of HTML, then it should probably allow ASCII whitespace only because I don't see any use case allowing all Unicode whitespace characters.

If the spec deals with natural language (like CSS Text or String Search), then it should probably allow all Unicode whitespace characters.

One more thing we might need to consider is whitespace in regular expressions.

I did some research and here is the current status of some languages:

HTML/JavaScript/Dart

\s is equivalent to [ \f\n\r\t\v\u00a0\u1680\u2000-\u200a\u2028\u2029\u202f\u205f\u3000\ufeff].

Ref: 1 2 3

Perl

\s means the five characters [ \f\n\r\t], and starting in Perl v5.18, the vertical tab.

A single /x tells the regular expression parser to ignore most whitespace that is neither backslashed nor within a bracketed character class. The set of characters that are deemed whitespace are:

U+0009 CHARACTER TABULATION
U+000A LINE FEED
U+000B LINE TABULATION
U+000C FORM FEED
U+000D CARRIAGE RETURN
U+0020 SPACE
U+0085 NEXT LINE
U+200E LEFT-TO-RIGHT MARK
U+200F RIGHT-TO-LEFT MARK
U+2028 LINE SEPARATOR
U+2029 PARAGRAPH SEPARATOR

Ref: https://perldoc.perl.org/perlre

UTS 18

\p{Whitespace}

Which includes:

0009..000D    ; White_Space # Cc   [5] <control-0009>..<control-000D>
0020          ; White_Space # Zs       SPACE
0085          ; White_Space # Cc       <control-0085>
00A0          ; White_Space # Zs       NO-BREAK SPACE
1680          ; White_Space # Zs       OGHAM SPACE MARK
2000..200A    ; White_Space # Zs  [11] EN QUAD..HAIR SPACE
2028          ; White_Space # Zl       LINE SEPARATOR
2029          ; White_Space # Zp       PARAGRAPH SEPARATOR
202F          ; White_Space # Zs       NARROW NO-BREAK SPACE
205F          ; White_Space # Zs       MEDIUM MATHEMATICAL SPACE
3000          ; White_Space # Zs       IDEOGRAPHIC SPACE

Ref: https://unicode.org/reports/tr18/#space

Python 3

Both patterns and strings to be searched can be Unicode strings (str) as well as 8-bit strings (bytes).

For Unicode (str) patterns, \s matches Unicode whitespace characters.

For 8-bit (bytes) patterns, \s matches characters considered whitespace in the ASCII character set; this is equivalent to [ \t\n\r\f\v].

Ref: https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html

Java

\s is equivalent to [ \t\n\x0B\f\r].

Ref: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/util/regex/Pattern.html

Swift

\s is equivalent to [\t\n\f\r\p{Z}].

\p{Z} means General_Category=Z.

Ref: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/foundation/nsregularexpression

RE2/Go

\s is equivalent to [\t\n\f\r ].

[[:space:]] is equivalent to [\t\n\v\f\r ].

\pZ means General_Category=Z.

Ref: 1 2

Added a list of \p{Whitespace} characters to the previous comment.

I suspect that it would be helpful to list the characters, so that readers can easily evaluate the difference.

I created a table that shows the specific characters in the various lists, which i'll send by email.

I created a table that shows the specific characters in the various lists, which i'll send by email.

Thank you. I've added the table.

@xfq i think you need to add the table to the main text, rather than hide it in the pulldown – where i suspect that few people will notice it. I think you should probably also do one of the following:

1. add a line of text after the table saying something like "Links to the latest definitions of the information in the table can be found by expanding the 'explanations & examples'."
2. add a link to the relevant comment in the table.
3. move the links out of the pulldown and make them normal text, too (with a sentence of introdction)

Also, it would be good to allow the table to extend into the right margin, so that it becomes less tall. I have a vague recollection that respec has a declarative way to do that.

Oh, and btw don't forget to add the link to the tracker db.

add a line of text after the table saying something like "Links to the latest definitions of the information in the table can be found by expanding the 'explanations & examples'."

Done.

Also, it would be good to allow the table to extend into the right margin, so that it becomes less tall. I have a vague recollection that respec has a declarative way to do that.

But this will make the viewport on smartphones too wide and unusable. I also searched "table" in https://respec.org/docs/ but didn't get anything that looked promising.

Oh, and btw don't forget to add the link to the tracker db.

Which link?

Which link?

The one like #79 but pointing to whitespace labels.

One suggestion, which will at least make it easier to read (not just because of overflow) the table on Gecko browsers: add

table.whitespace thead th {
  writing-mode: sideways-lr;
  }

to the local style definitions.

Otherwise, this is looking good.

Another issue is that the first three columns are all from Unicode but are defined differently, so ideally we should determine which definition should be recommended.

Merging. Thank you very much for your review!