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RE: EMBED and validation

• From: Gavin McKenzie <gmckenzi@J...>
• To: "'xml-dev@i...'" <xml-dev@i...>
• Date: Tue, 2 Dec 1997 19:56:58 -0500

Just some comments on this issue of 'inclusion'.  I apologize if this
sounds like a ramble...

I understand the purpose and usefullness of declaring an entity in the
internal DTD subset and employing this mechanism as the proper and valid
way to include some (potentially marked up) text.  But, echoing Rob
McDougall's closing statements, for *many* applications it is simply too
difficult for the application to 'predict' these inclusion points and
place a corresponding declaration in the internal DTD subset.  In fact,
I would venture to say that most of my customers would walk away from
XML based on this issue alone.

Heavens, so many data processing shops still want to continue writing
data out in fixed length COBOL style records; and while it may be the
nineties, they are resistant to change.  As much as it may seem to be a
stretch to bring these type of data producers into the XML world, I
(naively) think it is possible.

So, after reading all the previous submissions (especially Peter's
display of the overhead for setting up a GIF reference via the external
entity method) I too wish to use an XLL based mechanism for expressing
an 'inclusion' linkage, and pine for some agreement on the semantics.

Although one thing remains unclear, despite the dozens of submissions
I've read:  Is it, or is it not acceptable for an application to choose
to act upon an XLL linkage in a way that causes the target linked
content to be included and validated.  Another way, if I create an XML
derived format, and document that a processor of this derived format
should view a particular usage of an XLL construct as instructions to
"retrieved and include 'inline' the target content, and validate it
against the originating document's DTD as if the target content was part
of the original document".

I'd much prefer that there was a way to express this in the syntax.

Gavin.

========================================================
Gavin F. McKenzie           Vox:+1(613)230-3676 ext 5277
JetForm Corporation         Fax:+1(613)594-8886
http://www.jetform.com   mailto:gmckenzi@j...
========================================================


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