Comment 0 for bug 167125

...
<path
   d=""
   stroke-miterlimit="10"
   id="path6779"

style="fill:none;stroke:#000000;stroke-width:0.99900001;stroke-miterlimit:1
0.000000"
/><path
   d=""
   stroke-miterlimit="10"
   id="path6783"

style="fill:none;stroke:#000000;stroke-width:0.99900001;stroke-miterlimit:1
0.000000"
/><path
   d=""
   stroke-miterlimit="10"
   id="path6835"

style="fill:none;stroke:#000000;stroke-width:0.99900001;stroke-miterlimit:1
0.000000"
/>
 <path
   d=""
   stroke-miterlimit="10"
   id="path17"

style="fill:none;stroke:#000000;stroke-width:0.99900001;stroke-miterlimit:1
0.000000"
/><path
   d=""
   stroke-miterlimit="10"
   id="path29"

style="fill:none;stroke:#000000;stroke-width:0.99900001;stroke-miterlimit:1
0.000000"
/>
...

Notice the difference in whitespace between path6835
and path17 as opposed to the whitespace between any
other 2 consecutive paths ?

This causes a phantom tag to appear in the XML editor:
...
<svg:path id="path6783">
<svg:path id="path6835">
    "
<svg:path id="path17">
<svg:path id="path29">
...

Adobe illustrator seems to format SVG this way, which,
in turn causes inkscape to litter the XML editor with
these phantom tags. Also, svg2pdf (from the cairo
project) ends up segfaulting. However, tediously
scrolling through the XML editor and removing these
phantom tags or, alternatively, opening the SVG in a
text editor and re-formatting it causes the phantom
tags to disappear and svg2pdf to work properly.

It looks like the phantom tags appear because of the
misinterpretation of the SVG file induced by the
strange arrangement of whitespace. The SVG file itself
does not appear malformed.

It would be really nice if inkscape could properly
interpret the whitespace because it could then save the
SVG file in a svg2pdf-friendly fashion.