xml-dev - RE: Schemas and Other Crucial XML Questions

[David Megginson <david@megginson.com>]

Sam Gentile writes:

 > Thanks for your answers. I'm still a little confused.
 > 
 >  > > We have a spec called "XML-Data W3C Note 05 Jan 1998", which
 >  > > discusses schemas. It is not clear from the document what a
 >  > > schema is used for or what it's purpose is. Is it for designing
 >  > > the XML buffer only or is it read by the parser? Is it an
 >  > > extension to XML? Are they even necessary in basic XML?
 > 
 > >>>XML-Data is a note that was submitted to the W3C by Microsoft and a
 > >>>couple of partners -- it has no official status (a W3C "Note" means
 > >>>roughly "here's a neat idea from one of our members").
 > 
 > Ok, that's clear.
 > 
 > >>XML 1.0 DTDs and proposed replacements/enhancements such as
 > >>Microsoft's XML-Data and XML-Dev's XSchema perform three distinct
 > >>roles:
 > 
 > >>1. Provide a schema for validating the *logical structure*
 > >>   (element/attribute/data) structure of an XML document; as a side
 > >>   effect, structural schemas can also provide enough information to
 > >>   control a guided XML authoring tool.
 > 
 > How is this different from what DTDs do? Don't DTDs validate the *logical
 > structure* of an XML document?

Yes -- as I mentioned above, these are roles that both DTDs and their
proposed replacements can play.  XML-Data proposes some additional
types of validation, including validation for data content (is it an
integer? etc.).

 > >>2. Declare the entities (internal strings or external objects) that
 > >>   make up the *physical structure* of an XML document.
 > 
 > Don't DTDs do this?

Yes (see above).

 > 3. Provide default logical content for an XML document (such as
 >    default values for attributes, though XML-Data goes further).
 > 
 > Some people have argued -- quite convincingly, I think -- that these
 > roles should be kept separate: they are mixed together right now for
 > historical compatibility with ISO 8879:1986 DTDs.
 > >>>
 > 
 > How about the question of namespaces? Is this legal XML?
 > <1>
 > 	<1>data</1>
 > 	<2>data</2>
 > </1>
 > 
 > or do you need namespaces?

Actually, this is never valid XML 1.0 (with or without namespaces)
because XML names are not allowed to begin with numbers, so let me
recast your example:

  <a>
    <a>data</a>
    <b>data</b>
  </a>

Yes, this is good, simple, well-formed XML 1.0: elements are allowed
to recurse.  If you were using a DTD, you might make the following
declarations:

  <!ELEMENT a (#PCDATA|a|b)*>
  <!ELEMENT b (#PCDATA)>


All the best,


David

-- 
David Megginson                 david@megginson.com
           http://www.megginson.com/

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