\nCommand line parsers are stricter than human beings.\nThe computer cares about what you typed.\nIf you type something else that superficially resembles what you want,\nbut is not actually what you want,\nthen you won’t get what you want,\neven though it sure looks like what you want.\n<\/p>\n
\nI covered a special case of this topic earlier when I described\nsmart quotes as\n\nthe hidden scourge of text meant for computer consumption<\/a>.\nYou think you typed a quotation mark, but the editor\nsecretly “improves” it from U+0022 to U+201C.\nThen you paste the text into a command line and you get strange\noutput because the command line parser uses U+0022 as the\nquotation mark, not characters like U+201C which physically resemble\nU+0022 but aren’t.\nA human being would say, “Yeah, that’s a quotation mark,\nwe’ll let it slide.”\nA command line parser knows what it wants and accepts no substitutes.\n<\/p>\n \nEven though my original examples are for command line use,\nthe principle applies elsewhere,\nand I’m going to use CSS selectors as my example,\nbecause the command line programs used in my original examples\nare internal Microsoft tools,\nand explaining their command line syntax would distract from the message.\nOn the other hand, everybody can look up CSS selector syntax.\n(There is an opportunity for a snarky comment here, but I’m going\nto withhold the pre-emptive snarky comment in the hopes that my\nreaders are mature enough to not go for the cheap drive-by insult.\nI am almost always disappointed by the result, but I try again\nevery so often to see if the environment has changed.)\n<\/p>\n \nHere is an imaginary question\/answer session inspired by\nactual events:\n<\/p>\n \nFrom<\/b>: Xxxx Xxxxx\n<\/p>\n \nHow do I make a CSS rule apply only to elements with a specific\ntag and a specific class?\nSpecifically, I want a rule to apply only to elements of the form\n \nFrom<\/b>: Yyyyy Yyyyyy\n<\/p>\n \nYou use \nFrom<\/b>: Xxxx Xxxxx\n<\/p>\n \nI tried that, but it doesn’t work.\n<\/p>\n\n
<SPAN CLASS=\"Name\"><\/code>.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n
SPAN.Name<\/code>.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n
\nSPAN. Name { color: red; }\n<\/pre>\n<\/blockquote>\n