Document LayoutObject generation for whitespace nodes.

third_party/WebKit/Source/core/dom/WhitespaceLayoutObjects.md

+# Whitespace LayoutObjects
+
+Text nodes which only contain whitespace sometimes have a layout object and
+sometimes they don't. This document tries to explain why and how these layout
+objects are created.
+
+## Why
+
+For layout purposes, whitespace nodes are sometimes significant, but not
+always. In Blink, we try to create as few of them as possible to save memory,
+and save CPU by having fewer layout objects to traverse.
+
+### Inline flow
+
+Whitespace typically matters in an inline flow context. Example:
+
+    <span>A</span> </span>B</span>
+
+If we didn't create a LayoutObject for the whitespace node between the two
+spans, we would have rendered the markup above as "AB" as the span layout
+objects would have been siblings in the layout tree.
+
+### Block flow
+
+Whitespace typically doesn't matter in a block flow context. Example:
+
+    <div>A</div> <div>B</div>
+
+In the example above, the whitespace node between the divs would not contribute
+to layout/rendering. Hence, we can skip creating a LayoutText for it.
+
+### Out-of-flow
+
+Out-of-flow elements like absolutely positioned elements do not affect inline
+or block in-flow layout. That means we can skip such elements when considering
+the need whitespace layout objects.
+
+Example:
+
+    <div><span style="position:absolute">A</span> </span>B</span></div>
+
+In the example above, we don't need to create a whitespace layout object since
+it will be the first in-flow child of the block, and will not contribute to the
+layout/rendering.
+
+Example:
+
+    <span>A</span> <span style="position:absolute">Z</span> <span>B</span>
+
+In the example above, we need to create a whitespace layout object to separate
+the A and B in the rendering. However, we only need to create a layout object
+for one of the whitespace nodes as whitespaces collapse.
+
+### Preformatted text and editing
+
+Some values of the CSS white-space property will cause whitespace not to
+collapse and affect layout and rendering also in block layout. In those cases
+we always create layout objects for whitespace nodes.
+
+Whitespace nodes are also significant in editing mode.
+
+## How
+
+### Initial layout tree attachment
+
+When attaching a layout tree, we walk the flat-tree in a depth-first order
+walking the siblings from left to right. As we reach a text node, we check if
+we need to create a layout object in textLayoutObjectIsNeeded(). In particular,
+if we found that it only contains whitespace, we start traversing the
+previously added layout object siblings, skipping out-of-flow elements, to
+decide if we need to create a whitespace layout object.
+
+Important methods:
+
+    Text::attachLayoutTree()
+    Text::textLayoutObjectIsNeeded()
+
+### Layout object re-attachment
+
+During style recalculation, elements whose computed value for display change
+will have its layout sub-tree re-attached. Attachment of the descendant layout
+objects happens the same way as for inital layout tree attachment, but the
+interesting part for whitespace layout objects is how they are affected by
+re-attachment of sibling elements. Sibling nodes may or may not be re-attached
+during the same style recalc traversal depending on whether they change their
+computed display value or not.
+
+#### Style recalc traversal
+
+An important pre-requisite for how whitespace layout objects are re-attached
+is the traversal order we use for style recalc. The current traversal order
+makes it hard or costly to implement whitespace re-attachement without bugs in
+the presence of shadow trees, but let's describe what we do here.
+
+Style recalc happens in the shadow-including tree order with the exception that
+siblings are traversed from right to left. The ::before and ::after pseudo
+elements are recalculated in left-to-right (!?!) order, before and after
+shadow-including descendants respectively.
+
+Inheritance happens down the flat-tree. Since we are not traversing in
+flat-tree order, we implement this propagation from slot/content elements down
+to assigned/distributed nodes by marking these nodes with LocalStyleChange when
+we need to do inheritance propagation (done in HTMLSlotElement::willRecalcStyle
+for instance). This works since light-tree children are traversed after the
+shadow tree(s).
+
+#### Re-attaching whitespace layout objects
+
+When the computed display value changes, the requirement for whitespace
+siblings may change.
+
+Example:
+
+    <span style="position:absolute">A</span> <span>B</span>
+
+Initially, we don't need a layout object for the whitespace above. If we change
+the position of the first span to static, we need a layout object for the
+whitespace. During style recalc we keep track of the last text node sibling we
+traversed. The text node is reset when we traverse an element with a layout
+box. Remember that we traverse from right to left. That means we have stored
+the whitespace node above when we re-attach the left-most span. After
+re-attachment we re-attach the stored text node to see if the need for a
+layout object changed. If the text node re-attach changed the need for a layout
+object we continue to re-attach following layout object siblings until we
+reach an element with a layout object, or the re-attach was a no-op.
+
+The need for a whitespace layout object is dictated by the layout tree
+structure which is based on the flat-tree. That means the tracked text node
+solution we use does not work properly when (re-)attaching slotted and
+distributed nodes.
+
+Example:
+
+    <div id="host">
+        <:shadow-root>
+            <span style="position:absolute">A</span><slot></slot>
+        </:shadow-root>
+        <span>B</span>
+    </div>
+
+Initially, the whitespace before the B span above does not get a layout object.
+If we change the absolute positioned span in the shadow tree to static, we need
+to have a layout object for that whitespace node. However, since we traverse
+traverse the light-tree children of #host after the shadow tree, we do not see
+the text node before re-attaching the absolute positioned span.
+
+Likewise we currently have issues with ::before and ::after elements because we
+do not keep track of text nodes and pass them to ::before/::after element
+re-attachments. See the "Known issues" below.
+
+Important methods:
+
+    Element::recalcStyle()
+    ContainerNode::recalcDescendantStyles()
+    Node::reattachWhitespaceSiblingsIfNeeded()
+    Text::textLayoutObjectIsNeeded()
+    Text::reattachLayoutTreeIfNeeded()
+    Text::recalcTextStyle()
+
+Known issues:
+
+    https://crbug.com/648931
+    https://crbug.com/648951
+    https://crbug.com/650168