[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message]

Re: Create XML

• To: "Rick Jelliffe" <ricko@a...>
• Subject: Re: Create XML
• From: Uche Ogbuji <uche.ogbuji@f...>
• Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2003 09:21:48 -0600
• Cc: xml-dev@l...
• In-reply-to: Message from "Rick Jelliffe" <ricko@a...> of "Sat, 21 Jun 2003 16:09:01 +1000." <07c901c337bb$9c124180$4bc8a8c0@A...>
• Sender: uche.ogbuji@f...

> Personally, I like attribute normalization.  Being able to use an XPath
> like   @x="y"   rather than  normalize-space(@x)="y"  save keystrokes.
> In fact, for me, one of the most common problems of using using tokens
> in data content is that I invariably forget to normalize-space() the data
> first. This is a nasty problem, of course, because it only shows up when
> certain kinds of markup is used.
> 
> Getting rid of attribute normalization is a eumphemism for getting rid of
> tokens at the XML level. Tokens are useful, and they are a major use of 
> attributes. Arbitrary strings containing significant whitespace is a minority 
> use for which there is a workaround.  Also, best practise I18n 
> says that strings-for-humans should not be marked-up as attributes; so
> some of the use-cases may have a trade-off that makes them not as
> compelling.

Whew.  So I'm not alone on this.  I was scratching my head wondering what I 
was missing that's so evil about attribute normalization.  I've always thought 
it was a central part of the usefulness of attributes and went with the very 
rough rule "human readable in content, machine readable in attributes".


-- 
Uche Ogbuji                                    Fourthought, Inc.
http://uche.ogbuji.net    http://4Suite.org    http://fourthought.com
XML Data Bindings in Python - http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2003/06/11/py-xml.html
Introducing Examplotron - http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-x
mptron/
Charming Jython - http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/java/library/j-jython.h
tml
The commons of creativity - http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x
-think18.html
A custom-fit career in app development - http://www.adtmag.com/article.asp?id=7
744

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Create XML
    • From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>

• References:
  • Re: Create XML
    • From: "Rick Jelliffe" <ricko@a...>

• Prev by Date: The Preachers and the Moonshiners (Was: XPath 2.0, XSLT 2.0 ...)
• Next by Date: Re: Create XML
• Previous by thread: Re: Create XML
• Next by thread: Re: Create XML
• Index(es):
  • Date
  • Thread