[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message]

Re: Question on ANY (its use in RDF)

• From: Marcus Carr <mrc@a...>
• To: xml-dev@i...
• Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 10:44:38 +1100

Roger L. Costello wrote:

> I have a question about the ANY type.  It is my understanding
> that an element defined to be of type ANY can contain any
> element that is defined *within* the DTD (i.e., it cannot use
> elements that are not defined in the DTD).  Correct?

My advice to anyone is never accept a DTD that uses ANY. The only legimate use I
have ever seen for it is in an interim DTD during data conversion. It's a sloppy
use of a sloppy mechanism - for example, would you really want to support an
infinite number of nested rdf:Description elements? There is no preventing this -
even the DOCTYPE element can be nested within itself.

> How can rdf:Description contain the element cat:tables?  It is
> not defined in rdf.dtd.  I thought that ANY says that the element
> can contain any elements defined *within* the DTD?

> Here is RDF.dtd:
>
> ...
>
> <!ENTITY % value "( %rdfObj; | PCDATA )">
>
> <!ELEMENT rdf:li ( %value; )>
>

Nor is the element PCDATA, used in the parameter entity named value. If this is
supposed to be #PCDATA, it needs to appear before %rdfObj;. Unless we're missing
something about extending this DTD, it appears to be a dud. Someone has not been
very considerate of your time.


--
Regards,

Marcus Carr                      email:  mrc@a...
___________________________________________________________________
Allette Systems (Australia)      www:    http://www.allette.com.au
___________________________________________________________________
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
       - Einstein



xml-dev: A list for W3C XML Developers. To post, mailto:xml-dev@i...
Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/xml-dev/
To (un)subscribe, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message;
(un)subscribe xml-dev
To subscribe to the digests, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message;
subscribe xml-dev-digest
List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (mailto:rzepa@i...)

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Question on ANY (its use in RDF)
    • From: Chris Maden <crism@o...>

• References:
  • Question on ANY (its use in RDF)
    • From: costello@m... (Roger L. Costello)

• Prev by Date: XSA 1.0 specification released
• Next by Date: RE: SAX: Next Round
• Previous by thread: Question on ANY (its use in RDF)
• Next by thread: Re: Question on ANY (its use in RDF)
• Index(es):
  • Date
  • Thread