Box line with dot-1-2-3-4-5-6 not possible

[rbeezer]

BANA 7.6 says an "exterior" box line should use dot-1-2-3-4-5-6. Attached example shows that it is not possible to use a BRF "=" in a configuration file to achieve this.

Use

file2brl -f minimal.cfg source.html

Error message is

minimal.cfg:7: column 2 is required
minimal.cfg:8: column 2 is required
minimal.cfg:7: column 2 is required
minimal.cfg:8: column 2 is required

exterior-box-line.zip

[rbeezer]

From Norbert Markus on the liblouis mailing list, a pointer in the right direction

---

I have looked into the liblouisutdml code to find the cause of this problem.

In the file readconfig.c
the function:

static int
parseLine (lbu_FileInfo * nested)

line 389:

      while (((ch = *curchar++) <= 32 || ch == '=') && ch != 0);

I assume the above line is causing your problem. After a line has been read from the config, the first word on the line up to the first trailing space or equals sign is taken as the key fro the setting, then the following spaces and equals signs are ignored (this is done in the code snippet above) and the next word is taken as the value.
Unfortunately, it means you cannot specify the equals sign itself as the value for the setting because it is ignored. Putting a space and a fake second value after it does not help: the equals signs get ignored in any case.
This behavior makes sense in the context that the same algorithm is reused to parse config settings on the command line where an equals sign is the delimiter between the config key and its value.