xml-dev - Re: small questions

[Richard Light <richard@light.demon.co.uk>]

In message <5878@ursus.demon.co.uk>, Peter Murray-Rust
<Peter@ursus.demon.co.uk> writes
>I asked a similar question some time ago but none of the gurus replied.
>My interpretation of the TEI synatx (and I don't think it's clear in
the draft)
>is that a sequence like:
>       FOO(1,BAR1)(2,BAR2)(3,BAR3)
>is identical to the (meaningful) sequence
>       FOO(1,BAR1)FOO(2,BAR2)FOO(3,BAR3)
>and the operator is implicit in the shorter form.  JUMBO would
presently
>expand your query to:
>       CHILD(2,article)CHILD(3,issue)CHILD(4,year)
>which would fail for your document.  A typical query for me would be
>       CHILD(1,YEAR)(2,ISSUE)(1,ARTICLE)
>which would be equivalent to 
>       ID(FOO)
>
>If you want ALL of something, you have to write ALL (the spec is clear
>on that :-)
>
>*** TEI experts/ERB *** please shine some light on this :-) *********

I'm not claiming guru status, but I think I can help with this one (if
only because I've got the Big Green TEI Book which contains more
examples!).

You may find it non-intuitive, but the draft does state clearly that the
value of CHILD is "a _series_ of steps", where each step is a bracketed
expression.  Thus there is no need to 'expand':

        CHILD(2 article) (3 issue) (4 year)
to
        CHILD(2 article)CHILD(3 issue)CHILD(4 year)

as it already has this meaning.  This is in line with the general aim of
the TEI extended pointer mechanism to be as concise as possible.  (Note
also that there are no commas between the numbers and the element
names.)

(Incidentally, it also says that the steps are "separated by white
space", but there is nothing in the XML draft syntax, nor in the TEI
source from which it was copied, which enforces this.  Is this an issue,
either for TEI or for XML?)

Richard Light
SGML and Museum Information Consultancy
richard@light.demon.co.uk
3 Midfields Walk 
Burgess Hill
West Sussex RH15 8JA
U.K.
tel. (44) 1444 232067

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