[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: Use of Tags
At 4:43 +0800 20/4/99, Peter Wilson wrote: >I see two competing ways of designing an xml document type: > >1. Extensive use of attributes with elements used for structured and >repeating items. > <Invoice CustomerId=12345 Date=19991231> ... > >2. Extensive use of elements and almost no use of attributes: > <Invoice> > <CustomerId>12345</CustomerId> > <Date>19991231</Date> ... > >If you attempt to associate data types with entity data which is the >better representation? I.e. is it easier to define that the <Price> >element has a PCDATA content which is a currency value or that the Price >attribute has a currency value? The path that Microsoft seem to be following with XML-Data is to use elements and describe the schema in XML. My single biggest problem with this is the reuse of elements within other elements - you can't define an element with local 'scope'. What happens when Amount is an i2 in one context and a float in another? For this reason, people modelling UML mapping to serialisation in XML have recommended use of attributes (your 1.) for the properties of an object. The discussion page http://www.oasis-open.org/cover/elementsAndAttrs.html has a great link on this topic. I recommend reading all the links for a balanced, and evolving viewpoint. Andy Dent BSc MACS AACM, Software Designer, A.D. Software, Western Australia OOFILE - Database, Reports, Graphs, GUI for c++ on Mac, Unix & Windows PP2MFC - PowerPlant->MFC portability http://www.oofile.com.au/ 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/ and on CD-ROM/ISBN 981-02-3594-1 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...)
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