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RE: Use of "ANY"

• To: xml-dev@l...
• Subject: RE: Use of "ANY"
• From: "I-Lin Kuo" <ikuoikuo@h...>
• Date: Thu, 01 Aug 2002 17:38:33 +0000
• Bcc:

As far as I know, an element whose content is defined as ANY only has to be 
well-formed XML.

>From: "W. Hugh Chatfield  I.S.P." <hchatfield@u...>
>Date: Thu, 1 Aug 2002 12:40:28 -0400
>
>Doesn't an element whose content is defined as ANY mean that this element
>could consist of any element defined in this DTD..  not any old element at
>all.
>
>In this case you still have to have the presentation elements defined
>somewhere in your DTD.

>-----Original Message-----
>From: I-Lin Kuo [mailto:ikuoikuo@h...]
>Sent: Thursday, August 01, 2002 11:24 AM
>To: xml-dev@l...
>Subject:  Use of "ANY"
>
>
>Hi,
>
>I need some advice on the following problem:
>
>My organization has a DTD to which some people would like to add
>presentations tags to. There is another camp which opposes this as a bad
>idea, but the two have compromised on a set of 9 tags from TEI (Text
>Encoding Initiative).
>
>As one of the technical people charged to implement this, I find this a bad
>idea, and would like to propose the following alternative solution:
>
>--- Limit the use of presentation tags within a small subset of elements.
>For this subset of elements, specify the ELEMENTS contents as ANY instead 
>of
>the list of presentation tags.
>
>   I believe this solution has the benefit of allowing the pro-presentation
>camp to use whatever tags they want while removing us from the business of
>specifying presentation tags altogether. Instead, the decision of what
>presentation tags to support is left to the XSLT designer.
>   Furthermore, this solution also removes a technical obstacle as we
>transition our DTD to XSD, because the TEI specification is a DTD and there
>are too many problems validating against a mix of XSD and DTD. Using ANY
>removes the need to validate within that element.
>
>   Are there any counter arguments to this approach?
>
>   One major point raised in discussion is that there is a bias against the
>use of "ANY". A DTD with "ANY" would be viewed as unfinished, and would be
>an obstacle to having our DTD approved by an organization such as OASIS. Is
>this true? I am not an experienced schema designer, but it seems like
>precluding the use of "ANY" contradicts the extensibility of XML, as I 
>don't
>see how user-defined extensions are possible without the use of "ANY"
>
>   Thanks in advance for any insight on this.

I-Lin Kuo
Macromedia Certified ColdFusion 5.0 Advanced Developer
Sun Certified Java 2 Programmer
Ann Arbor, MI


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    • From: John Cowan <jcowan@r...>

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