Re: [OT] Can XML elements contain text as well as othe

Wendell and Mike,

Thanks for that.  I would have considerably overcomplicated things if I'd
stuck with my current plan.

Thanks again

Simon


----- Original Message -----
From: "Wendell Piez" <wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2003 5:21 PM
Subject: RE:  [OT] Can XML elements contain text as well as other
elements?


> At 10:47 AM 5/21/2003, Mike wrote:
> > > This is a bit OT, but I am thinking of ways to reduce the
> > > depth of an XML doc, to reduce the amount of templates in my xsl doc.
> >
> >Unless you have layers of elements that are completely redundant, this
> >could be counter-productive. Certainly, mixed content (elements and text
> >as siblings) can be quite hard to process if you want to do anything
> >non-trivial with it.
>
> I agree with Mike that the general aim may be misconceived -- I too have
> seen mixed content used by neophyte designers in places where it causes
> trouble, but confers no benefit (as have all long-time readers of this
list).
>
> The best (only?) use case for mixed content is in truly documentary
> applications -- inline tagging to represent inline phenomena (like HTML
> <code>, <i>, what have you). It isn't generally a technique for reducing
> tagging overhead. On the contrary, when the data elements aren't actually
> "mixed" (that is, when they are intended to be pulled apart and used
> separately, not always together), they always benefit from proper labeling
> and wrapping.
>
> This isn't to discourage, it's just to alert that it's a deeper question
> than it may at first appear to be.
>
> Reducing the number of templates in a stylesheet isn't an optimization
I've
> ever seen pay off -- the cost elsewhere in the system (complexity of
> processing required; trouble to other users) can be more than it's worth.
> (And many of the nicest stylesheets have lots of itty-bitty, simple
templates.)
>
> As Mike says, of course, "completely redundant" tagging is a different
> question.
>
> To declare mixed content in W3C schema, just say "mixed='yes'" on the
> element declaration....
>
> Cheers,
> Wendell
>
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>
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