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Re: DTD Question: Attributes vs Elements

• From: Tim Bray <tbray@t...>
• To: Kurt Donath <kurt.donath@l...>, xml-dev@i...
• Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1999 11:55:47 -0800

At 02:33 PM 3/19/99 -0500, Kurt Donath wrote:
>
>What is the criteria for selecting when to define data as an attribute
>or element in a DTD?  

Personal taste.  This is a religious issue.  Attributes differ in 
that 
- they get white-space-normalized
- their order is not significant
- you can't have more than 1 with the same name on an element
- they can't contain any internal structure

If these things matter, your decision is made.  If not, make it yourself.
Lesson: software writers have to be able/willing to pull information
out of either elements or attributes. -Tim

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