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[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: A standard approach to glueing together reusable XML fragments in pr
Hi,
These are very interesting questions. And as you may have noted, there are some interesting problems associated as well. :-)
For one, the simple problem of presenting the glued (referenced, associated, linked, whatever) data is not trivial. Should you write "The <ref href="Miami.xml">..." (notice "The") or simply start with the <href>? If you're describing many properties in one sentence, like in your tides example, how do you present the properties, one by one, or in a group reference ("The tides are <href>." or "The tides are <href> and <href>") because that affects what happens if you only want to reference one of the properties. Et cetera.
And do you leave out the base property (the city name, in your example) and reference to it (as in your example), or do you include it but wrap it in an element ("<href>Miami</href>...")?
What happens if you need to translate the source to a language with a radically different syntax in terms of singular/plural forms, handling of prepositions, word separators, etc?
I've discussed some similar issues in a whitepaper for the Extreme Markup conference that you may find helpful (or at least readable; see http://www.mulberrytech.com/Extreme/Proceedings/html/2003/Nordstrom01/EML2003Nordstrom01.html).
Best,
/Ari
_____
Ari Nordström - Consultant XML/SGML
Sörman Information & Media AB, Celsiusgatan 8, 702 74 Göteborg, SWEDEN
www.sorman.com
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Roger L. Costello [mailto:costello@m...]
> Sent: 18 August 2003 18:35
> To: xml-dev@l...
> Subject: A standard approach to glueing together reusable XML
> fragments
> in prose?
>
>
> Hi Folks,
>
> I am working with some people who wish to migrate from an
> all-prose format to a prose-plus-reusable-XML-fragments
> format.
>
> They have some data in prose that is useable in many contexts. They
> want to break out that reusable data into XML fragments. However,
> they want to continue to provide the prose style.
>
> For example, consider this prose data:
>
> <para>The city of Miami, Florida (pop. 1, 234,000) is a sprawling city
> with many attractions. Miami Beach is a popular attraction. The
> spring tide is ... The neap tide is ... </para>
>
> Examining this prose we can extract reusable info about the city of
> Miami:
>
> <City id="Miami">
> <state>Florida</state>
> <population>1,234,000</population>
> </City>
>
> We can also extract reusable info about tide data on Miami Beach:
>
> <TideData id="MiamiBeachTides">
> <springTide>...</springTide>
> <neapTide>...</neapTide>
> </TideData>
>
> The problem now is to create a framework which allows the prose
> to bring-together the independent, reusable XML components.
> Conceptually, what is desired is a "glue framework" like this:
>
> <para>The <ref href="Miami.xml"> is a sprawling city with
> many attractions. Miami Beach is a popular attraction. The
> tides are <ref href="MiamiBeachTides.xml"><para>
>
> Thus, the prose is "glueing" together the XML fragments.
>
> Is this a problem that you have experience with? What "glue
> framework" have you used? What strategy did you use to merge
> the XML fragments with the prose? Is there is a standard way
> of combining semi-structured data with structured data?
> /Roger
>
>
>
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