[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: Proposal Announcement - XML DTDs to XML docs
Simon St.Laurent wrote: > > It's good to get feedback. > > 1) A document syntax specification (a simplified version of well-formed > documents) > 2) A syntax for linking to DTDs (and perhaps schemas) internal or external > (which would depend on XLink) > 3) A syntax for DTDs providing rules for validation. > (Schema definitions could rest on top of #3 or beside it.) So at what level do I get the equivalent of internal entities and defaulted attributes? And what levels are required of all XML processors vs. optional? > I would certainly want this to be extensible; parsers that didn't understand > an extended portion of this DTD could simply ignore that portion, provided the > document met the basic rules. The important point is that you aren't talking about an alternate notation for XML DTDs, but a complete change in the relationship between DTDs and documents. In XML, DTDs can affect the interpretation (not just validation) of a document, through entities, defaulted attributes, element-content vs. mixed-content and so forth. If DTDs can both change the way a document is parsed *and* be extensible, then two parsers could get completely different information out of the same document. For example: One company's DTD extension could add in SGML tag ommission. The start- and end-tag of an element could be implied, without violating well-formedness. So then you could use that company's parser through SAX and get a completely different set of events than if you used someone else's parser. After all, changing the parse is one of the responsibilities of the DTD. > I would rather _not_ provide full schema information in this > proposal - moving XML DTDs to a new format seems like enough of a task to > start with. I don't know what you mean by full schema information. DTDs serve as schemas (in addition to changing the parse). If you propose to replace DTDs, then you are in part designing a new schema language. My suggestion is to develop a new schema language *without* changing DTDs. In other words, I am suggesting you make your project smaller, not larger. I would suggest you forget about entities, defaulted attributes, etc. Leave those to DTDs. Paul Prescod - http://itrc.uwaterloo.ca/~papresco "A writer is also a citizen, a political animal, whether he likes it or not. But I do not accept that a writer has a greater obligation to society than a musician or a mason or a teacher. Everyone has a citizen's commitment." - Wole Soyinka, Africa's first Nobel Laureate 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/ 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...)
|
PURCHASE STYLUS STUDIO ONLINE TODAY!Purchasing Stylus Studio from our online shop is Easy, Secure and Value Priced! Download The World's Best XML IDE!Accelerate XML development with our award-winning XML IDE - Download a free trial today! Subscribe in XML format
|