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Re: And the DTD says, "I'm NOT dead yet!!"

• From: Bob Kline <bkline@r...>
• To: Norman Walsh <ndw@n...>
• Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2001 09:33:09 -0500 (EST)

Norman Walsh wrote:

> | BTW, how are you handling entities in your conversion effort? Seems that
> | Schemas has sort of punted on this issue currently, which might not be
> | a problem in the data centric world and maybe not an issue in XML if some
> | one would ever implement the fragement standard.
>
> DocBook doesn't define any entities, so I didn't have to cross that
> bridge. If I'd had to cross it, I don't know how I would have. That's
> a gaping chasm.

XML Schema does have some significant holes, but for the most part I
don't think this is one of them.  The most common uses I have seen for
entities are:

  1. to create macros for commonly used content-model groups; and
  2. to create a kludge for working around the lack of support for
     namespaces in DTDs.

The first is handled fairly well by named groups (<xsd:group name=...)
and the second problem doesn't exist because XML Schema supports
namespaces.  External entities in DTDs correspond pretty well to the
<xsd:include ...> element in XML Schema.

Perhaps someone who *really* knows what they're talking about (Henry?)
can elaborate or correct any misinformation I've dropped here. :->}

-- 
Bob Kline
mailto:bkline@r...
http://www.rksystems.com

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