Ordered list items and the point

Ordered list items and the point

[c.buhtz]

This is about https://orgmode.org/worg/dev/org-syntax.html#Plain_Lists

Comparing the syntax description and the real world behaviour of my 
Emacs 27 with org from yesterday it seems to me that the syntax 
description is not correct.

I cite "Plain Lists" section:
"If first item in a plain list has a COUNTER in its BULLET, the plain 
list will be an “ordered plain-list”."

This is not true in many ways because in the section "Items" a COUNTER 
is described as
"Either a number or a single letter (a-z)."

An ordered list item need to have a point after its digit. Correct is 
"1. item"; incorrect is "1 item". As an alternative to the "." an ")" is 
allowed also.

A letter is not a COUNTER no matter if there is an "." or ")" after it. 
An org-buffer and org-html-export-as-html does not recognize this as a 
list item.

Do I miss something? Are there any other characters that need to 
considered?

Re: Ordered list items and the point

[Ihor Radchenko]

c.buhtz@posteo.jp writes:

> This is about https://orgmode.org/worg/dev/org-syntax.html#Plain_Lists
>
> Comparing the syntax description and the real world behaviour of my 
> Emacs 27 with org from yesterday it seems to me that the syntax 
> description is not correct.
>
> I cite "Plain Lists" section:
> "If first item in a plain list has a COUNTER in its BULLET, the plain 
> list will be an “ordered plain-list”."

> This is not true in many ways because in the section "Items" a COUNTER 
> is described as
> "Either a number or a single letter (a-z)."

To be on the same page, I will also quote what is BULLET:

>> One of the two forms below, followed by either a whitespace character
>> or line ending.
>> - An asterisk, hyphen, or plus sign character (i.e., *, -, or +).
>> - Either the pattern COUNTER. or COUNTER).
>>   + COUNTER :: Either a number or a single letter (a-z).

> An ordered list item need to have a point after its digit. Correct is 
> "1. item"; incorrect is "1 item". As an alternative to the "." an ")" is 
> allowed also.
>
> A letter is not a COUNTER no matter if there is an "." or ")" after it. 
> An org-buffer and org-html-export-as-html does not recognize this as a 
> list item.

> Do I miss something? Are there any other characters that need to 
> considered?

The latter ("1 item") is not an item because it does not have BULLET
even though it contains COUNTER.

Again, if you can think about better way to explain ordered plain lists,
feel free to propose a patch. The fact that you were confused already
shows that the current description is not ideal.

I am also CCing Timothy as he may be interested.

Best,
Ihor