Draft Spec mark 2

Greg Whitbread ghw at ANBG.GOV.AU
Wed Sep 6 09:40:09 CEST 2000


Bob (Object) Morris might have an alternative solution
but my relational database dislikes
mixed ( though valid ) content like

<!ELEMENT qualifier (#PCDATA ) >
<!ELEMENT value ( #PCDATA | qualifier )* >

as in Bryan's preferred example.

><ELEMENT>
> <NAME> leaf </NAME>
> <VALUE>
>      lobed margins
> </VALUE>
> <VALUE>
>      with spines
>      <QUALIFIER>
>        rarely
>      </QUALIFER>
>  </VALUE>
></ELEMENT>
>

My database wants that everything should have a name,
otherwise it texts over and talks in blobs.

Mixed content might also impact some of the validation
and context issues discussed earlier.

 From http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-xml-19980210 ,
 Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0.
 "An element type has mixed content when elements of that type may contain
  character data, optionally interspersed with child elements. In this case,
  the types of the child elements may be constrained, but not their order or
  their number of occurrences:"

So, to avoid unnecessary rewriting and
to promote maximum utility I would prefer:

<!ELEMENT value  #PCDATA ) >
<!ATTLIST value qualifier CDATA #IMPLIED>
...

</ELEMENT>
  <NAME> leaf </NAME>
  <VALUE>
      lobed margins
  </VALUE>
  <VALUE qualifier="rarely">
      with spines
  </VALUE>
</ELEMENT>

or

<ELEMENT>
   <NAME> leaf </NAME>
   <STATE>
    <VALUE> lobed margins </VALUE>
   </STATE>
   <STATE>
    <VALUE> with spines </VALUE>
    <QUALIFIER> rarely </QUALIFER>
   </STATE>
</ELEMENT>


greg


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