xml-dev - Re: Proposed process for DTDs in XML

[Toby Speight <tms@ansa.co.uk>]

Peter> Peter Murray-Rust <URL:mailto:peter@ursus.demon.co.uk>

=> In article <3.0.1.16.19980524201322.1cbffb1a@pop3.demon.co.uk>,
=> Peter wrote:

Peter> One fundamental aspect is whether there needs to be any software or
Peter> APIs [for an XML document structure schema].  Although theoretically
Peter> SAX could have been written as an API, in practice it was critical
Peter> that David produced an implementation as proof of concept.

I think a translator to DTD syntax is essential.  If the proposed
schema supports features not expressible in DTD syntax, they will of
course be lost (which imposes a constraint on the schema definition -
extra features must be omissible without detriment to existing
document-consumers, or must be marked as being more than SGML).

I intend to play with writing such a tool using DSSSL and Jade (using
Jade's SGML back-end to write the DTD - ugh!).  As a side-effect, it
should be easy to produce pretty printed documentation from the prose
in the schema (I'm assuming the schema will provide for in-line
documentation, perhaps in a Literal Programming style).  If the schema
definition is specified in its own language, as the XML spec is
written in XML, then it is important to be able to translate it to
something people can use now.

-- 


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