[XSL-LIST Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: attribute nodes
Chris, I'm not trying to solve any big problems here -- it just seems odd that a node is not a child node because of its label. I also think it is interesting that because an attribute is always a leaf, it can be neither a parent or a child. Are there other examples of such "bobbles" on trees or is it common in data models to have semi-nodes? I trow not. Nonetheless, this is not dangerous nor does it ever seem difficult to process attribute nodes. It is merely amusing. I appreciate your insights into WG wranglings. -Mike Chris Maden wrote: > And Michael Kay answered, accurately, to my recollection. What > additional > information are you seeking? > > You'll note that the Aho & Ullman definition appears almost > verbatim in the > XML 1.0 Recommendation. It applies only to elements - a child > element has > a parent element, and a parent element may have child elements. XPath > adopted that model, and extended the terminology where it was > logical: for > comments, processing instructions, and text nodes, which are > ordered within > the three. Attributes are not children; I've never seen a discussion of > XML that describes them as such, and they don't fit with the > observed user > expectations of children. They are illustrated as decorations on > a tree or > tags on boxes, not as descendants or nested boxes. > > But this presents a problem. We have the attribute axis for referencing > attribute nodes, distinct from the child axis. But an attribute has an > "owner" that it is interesting to discuss; what do we call it? There was > some considerable debate about breaking the symmetry of child and parent, > but for simplicity and least surprise (except among hard-core CS nerds), > the final decision seems to have worked well. > > -Chris > -- > Christopher R. Maden, XML Consultant > DTDs/schemas - conversion - ebooks - publishing - Web - B2B - training > <URL: http://crism.maden.org/consulting/ > > PGP Fingerprint: BBA6 4085 DED0 E176 D6D4 5DFC AC52 F825 AFEC 58DA > > > XSL-List info and archive: http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list > > XSL-List info and archive: http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
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