xml-dev - RE: parser for xml-data?

[Charles Frankston <cfranks@microsoft.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rick Jelliffe [mailto:ricko@allette.com.au]
> Sent: Friday, May 08, 1998 5:58 PM
> To: xml-dev@ic.ac.uk
> Subject: Re: parser for xml-data?
> 
> 
> From: Ron Bourret <rbourret@dvs1.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de>
> 
> > The only major difference I have found so far for XML is 
> that the elements
> in
> > XML documents are ordered, while data members in OO 
> programming languages
> are
> > not.
> 
> There is an error in the (January 5?) XML-data report, in the 
> very first
> example.
> It gives the clear impression that XML-data does not 
> constrain sequence for
> the element types it describes. In the example, the 
> declarations for the
> element
> types which can appear as the content of an element types are 
> given in one
> order, but the instance has them in another order.  (A Microsoft
> representative
> pointed this out to me: I dont know why they haven't just 
> reissued the note,
> since it
> is a fairly cricitical point for implementors.)

Well, it's not actually a note, Rick, it's a submission to the W3C.  But
yes, the errors should be corrected, presumably by a re-submission.  There
are more, mostly less serious, errors and typos that should be corrected as
well.

> 
> Also note that the usage of ISO 8601 date formats seems to be wrong.
> ISO 8601 date format is yyyy-mm-dd, e.g. 1998-05-09, and not 19980509,
> last time I looked.

Both 1998-05-09 and 19980509 are legal in ISO 8601 (there's a "full" and a
"basic" format, or something like that).  However, my current inclination is
always to use the full form, i.e. 1998-05-09, as per Misha Wolf's and
Charles Wickstead's note: http://www.w3c.org/TR/NOTE-datetime-970915.html.
> 
> If anyone is thinking of implementing XML-data, I suggest 
> they befriend the
> authors, because the report misses out on several key issues. (I have
> previously
> mentioned that is does not seem to make clear whether you can have an
> XML-data schema as part of a document, or whether it must be 
> external. If it
> is internal, can it describe the document's root element? I 
> suppose a close
> reading of the XML-data text might help, but it is not clear 
> to me after
> dozens of readings, but I do not claim to be particularly 
> brilliant in this
> area.)

Befriending the authors is always a good idea :-), as is allowing schema
information in a document instance.  I think the next revision should try to
define this.

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