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

RE: canonical form

• From: Andrew Layman <andrewl@m...>
• To: xml-dev <xml-dev@i...>
• Date: Wed, 1 Sep 1999 10:44:26 -0700

By 'canonical form' I assume you mean the style of XML described in the
paper I co-authored showing how graphs of objects could be serialized in XML
using elements to represent objects/nodes and attributes for
properties/edges.  I should clarify something: This paper shows only one
possible way to serialize graphs, and serializing graphs is only one
possible use of XML.  The particular choices in that paper were motivated by
the fact that, if one wishes to describe the syntax using a DTD, elements do
not provide local scoping of property names while attributes do.

It is perfectly reasonable to choose other styles of XML usage for
serializing graphs.  The style you indicate (properties as subelements) can
be made to work, though describing the resulting syntax in a DTD is either
not possible or requires some munging of property names.  (This awkwardness
is relieved in the drafts of the new schema language under discussion at the
W3C.)

I hope this is helpful,

Andrew Layman
Microsoft



-----Original Message-----
From: yimin zhu [mailto:yiminz@t...]
Sent: Wednesday, September 01, 1999 8:17 AM
To: xml-dev
Subject: canonical form


While mapping graphs, say UML models into XML-data schema, what will happen
if I do not use "canonical form"? I mean entity properties are mapped to
subelements rather than attributes? Does anyone ran into the same problem
before?

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/ and on CD-ROM/ISBN
981-02-3594-1
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...)

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/ and on CD-ROM/ISBN 981-02-3594-1
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...)

• Prev by Date: Re: Required Reading (was Re: Who needs XHTML Namespace?)
• Next by Date: Re: Who needs XHTML Namespace?
• Previous by thread: canonical form
• Next by thread: No Subject
• Index(es):
  • Date
  • Thread