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[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: Why must an XML document contain an element?
 Hi Eric, I see Tim has answered some of your queries. I'll take another (implied one). In message <libSDtMail.9705061419.19450.ebaatz@barbaresco> Eric Baatz - Sun Microsystems Labs BOS writes: > My application accepts plain text. If its client wants it to do I think you have an assumption here that you know what software will be processing your document at the other end. So far that isn't defined in XML - it may be later. At present all that the client knows is: - the document is XML - *possibly* what the DOCTYPE is - *possibly* what stylesheets are associated with the document. AT present there is no mechanism in XML for saying 'please process this document with FOOBAZ software'. That's more like a plugin requirement. The most that XML can say is: - please apply this stylesheet to the document. And the stylesheet can have sophisticated algorithmic behaviour through DSSSL - OR please apply this behavior to the document (or some part of the document). At present the syntax isn't defined. My current approach in JUMBO is to apply a separate Java class per element. Other people may have different strategies. Let's assume your document is <FOO> This is the first line and there was a newline </FOO> If you sent your document to JUMBO, it would capture the text including spaces and newlines and store it as a PCDATA element. If you wanted to output it it would output it as you sent it. If you wanted to display it it would look excatly the same. If, however, you used <HTML> instead it would try (rather crudely) to format it as HTML. the newline would disappear and newlines would be included in the display where the text hid the right edge. At present JUMBO is not sophisticated enough to manage the DEFAULT|PRESERVE attribute - by default it's DEFAULT which is the application's default w/s processing mode (which happens to be PRESERVE!!). Remember also that a 'plain text' document has a lot of implied structure which the application cannot be expected to pick up without careful conventions. > a better job, it can markup the text using an XML syntax. > > So, the client could want to send the application something like: > > This is plain text. > > However, if the application is expecting XML markup, then it would I am not quite sure whether I understand your use of client and application. My model is: WWW --->doc---> parser --> application If you use a WWW browser (?client) to interface to the WWW, then you might have: WWW--->doc---> browser -->parser --> application Some people would call the whole of the client-side stuff a client, whereas others might just use it for the browser. I think this is an important point and have urged the XML community to try to identify these components precisely. For my own part, I separate parser and application in the architecture, and this is a useful model. What does your application get from the browser/parser? We're still trying to work that out. NXP gives me an Esis stream [Norbert, I need a handle to extarct the DOCTYPE, since that's not in Esis]. Lark gives me a root element of a tree, which I can navigate myself. Some people want to pass groves to the application, but I'm not sure of the status of those developments. P. > be nice if everything a client sent was an XML document. So, for > the sake of clarity and consistency, I can force the client to send: -- Peter Murray-Rust, domestic net connection Virtual School of Molecular Sciences http://www.vsms.nottingham.ac.uk/ xml-dev: A list for W3C XML Developers Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/xml-dev/ To unsubscribe, send to majordomo@i... the following message; unsubscribe xml-dev List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (rzepa@i...) 
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