I'm already working on a style sheet to turn it into xhtml.


Carl P.

Kimbro Staken wrote:

> Trent Shipley wrote:
> 
>> If there were a DTD the line would not be valid since there are typos.  It
>> should read:
> 
> 
> Even without a DTD it is still not well formed and won't parse by an XML
> parser. 
> 
>> <item depends_on='OldBusiness.LegalAdvisors' id='Charter'>Charter</item>
>> 
>> There is an element with the id of OldBusiness.  It contains an element with
>> an id of LegalAdvisors so the phrase:
>> 
>> depends_on='OldBusiness.LegalAdvisors' should be a valid and unambiguous
>> reference.
> 
> 
> This is a very legitimate thing to want to do in an XML application
> however it isn't something that XML 1.0 says anything about. The
> interpretation of the depends_on attribute will be completely up to the
> application. 
> 
> All XML provides is the mechanism to define the file format and verify
> that it conforms to a particular document type. Beyond that you have to
> move to other specifications or your own application specific logic.
> 
>> (Unfortunately, my understanding is that in XML an 'id' MUST be unique.  I
>> don't think XML would support the implied scoping for name resolution
>> implied by this scheme.  If so, its too bad.)
> 
> 
> The id/idref mechanism only means something if you have a DTD to define
> the attribute as an ID. As it stands in your document all id means is
> that you have an attribute called id and what it semantically means is
> completely up to the consuming application. You are correct though that
> a DTD defined id attribute must be unique within the entire document and
> a corresponding idref can not be scoped like you want. 
> 
>> ---------
>> 
>> I will probably generate several more documents marked up with this sort of
>> pseudo-XML before I seriously consider a 0.0.0 attempt at a DTD.
> 
> 
> This is a really good use for XML and you don't need a DTD to have a
> well formed XML document. Think of the DTD as more like documentation
> for the structure of the document and not as a requirement. And please,
> please, please don't feel like you need to use any of the "advanced"
> features of DTDs. DTDs are an unfortunate holdover from the days of SGML
> and really should just die a painful death.
> 
> One other suggestion is you should create an XSL-T stylesheet to
> transform the XML into something more suitable for human consumption,
> i.e. HTML. I can help with this if you want.
> 
> 
>