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RE: DTD's

• From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>
• To: Sandra Carney <scarney@e...>, xml-dev@l...
• Date: Thu, 17 May 2001 12:55:12 -0500

That's one use.   Well-formed is what the 
message or document should be in transport. 
With a correct-by-construction application, 
you can build that without a DTD.  Spitting 
well-formed XML from a database is trivial 
because the database schema, GUI, and business 
rules did all the heavy lifting.  On the other
hand, a DTD or schema has multiple use cases:

o  Rigorous form of contract between 
communicating systems

o  Means to validate a message on send 
or on receipt

o  Means to create or specify an 
authoring environment.  In the first 
case, editors take a DTD and create the 
GUI for editing.  In the second case, 
the DTD is used to get the rules for 
forms or other GUI objects.

This is all well-known stuff.  Your 
developers aren't wrong per se, but 
they aren't being very precise.

It's just another tool in the gig bag.

Len 
http://www.mp3.com/LenBullard

Ekam sat.h, Vipraah bahudhaa vadanti.
Daamyata. Datta. Dayadhvam.h


-----Original Message-----
From: Sandra Carney [mailto:scarney@e...]
Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2001 11:43 AM
To: xml-dev@l...
Subject: DTD's


Hi,
  We have a question about the necessity of DTD.  There are folks
  among our developers who postulate that so long as the document
  is well-formed, we don't need DTD's.  So far, so true.  However,
  might this pose a quality problem later on especially if you want
  to limit what are considered legitimate tags in the document?
Regards,
Sandra Carney

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