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Re: XSet, an XML Property Set, was: re: Why the Infoset?

• From: John Cowan <jcowan@r...>
• To: Jonathan Borden <jborden@m...>
• Date: Wed, 02 Aug 2000 13:35:07 -0400

Jonathan Borden wrote:

> [The Infoset is s]ufficient
> for what? Sufficient for the in-scope task of the XML Infoset WG.
> Not sufficient as a 'full fidelity' abstract description a.k.a. XML Property
> Set.

Just to give an idea of how big a job a "full fidelity" property set is,
consider the production S of the XML Recommendation, which matches one or more
whitespace characters (space, tab, CR, LF).  There are, by my eyeball
count, 74 instances of S in the production rules.  In order to make the
Infoset suitable for generating an exact replica of the original, *at least*
74 new information item properties would be required for the representation
of whitespace alone!  

Neither I nor (I suspect) anyone else has even 1/74th of the patience
required to specify such a thing.  It has been done once for SGML, and an
amazing tour de force it is (and with properties like this, one can see
that subsetting via grove plans is a positive necessity).  So if you need
that level of detail, you know where to find it, since every XML document
is an SGML document.

I would welcome a document specifying the Infoset as a grove plan of the
SGML property set.  If anyone can whip up such a thing by, say, mid-September,
I will with great enthusiasm include it as another non-normative appendix,
with full credit to the author.

-- 

Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis um dies! || John Cowan <jcowan@r...>
Schliesst euer Aug vor heiliger Schau,  || http://www.reutershealth.com
Denn er genoss vom Honig-Tau,           || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Und trank die Milch vom Paradies.            -- Coleridge (tr. Politzer)

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