xml-dev - A DTD for DCD

[Dean Roddey <roddey@us.ibm.com>]

Here is a DTD I've been working on for DCD. It supports only the "strict" (i.e.
attribute'y) version of the syntax, and there are some ordering limitations
that are not implied by the spec, just because of I don't want to do 10
different content versions in some places in order to support all of the
possibilities. I'd appreciate any feedback on why it fits or does not fit, or
what sucks or does not suck about it.

Be forwarned that many of the examples in the spec won't make it through this
DTD. In some cases its because of simple ordering, but mostly its just because
the examples were not compliant with the spec. I've passed these failures back
to Ashok who I assume will update the next version. If anyone wants fixed
versions of all of the examples that will also go through this DTD, let me know
and I'll send them to you.

Anyway, any comments on this DTD or the readability of the DCD spec or on DCD
in general would be appreciated. I'll make sure that they get to Ashok. Also,
any comments on the RDF aspects of DCD would be appreciated.

Here is the DTD:

<?xml encoding="US-ASCII"?>

<!--
*   FILE: DCD.Dtd
*
*   This file provides a DTD for the DCD Schema, or at least for a restricted
*   syntax of it that is controlled by the "syntax=explicit" Processing
*   Instruction explained in section
*
*       "2.1.2 Interchangeability of Elements and Attributes"
*
*   This PI forces a subset of the legal properties of an element or attribute
*   definition to be implemented as attributes, not as nested elements.
-->

<!--
*   Define some parameter entities to simplify things below.
*
*   DataTypeList
*       The enumerated values for the "DataType" attribute.
*-->
<!ENTITY % DataTypeList "(id|idref|idrefs|entity|entities|nmtoken|nmtokens|
                        notation|string|number|int|decimal|boolean|dateTime|
                        dateTime.tz|date|time|time.tz|interval|i1|i2|i4|
                        i8|ui1|ui2|ui4|ui8|r4|r8|uri|char|enumeration)" >


<!--
*   The overall syntax of a DCD Schema is that is a sequence of elements,
*   entities, and global attribute defs. It can have a description and
*   namespace declaration at the top.
-->
<!ELEMENT DCD   (
                    Namespace?,
                    Description?,
                    (
                        ElementDef
                        | AttributeDef
                        | InternalEntityDef
                        | ExternalEntityDef
                    )*
                )>


<!--
*   An ElementDef is used to define the elements that the target XML
*   file can contain, the ordering of them, and their content.
*
*   Each ElementDef has an optional description, one or zero Groups, and
*   an open ended list of Attribute and AttributeDef elements. For the
*   sake of flexibility, the content model allows as many variations as
*   is reasonable, in terms of ordering. But it does not allow all of
*   the possible orderings, as it forces the description to come first.
*
-->
<!ELEMENT ElementDef    (
                            Description?,
                            (
                                (Group?, (AttributeDef|Attribute)*)
                                | (AttributeDef*, Group?, Attribute*)
                                | ((AttributeDef|Attribute)*, Group?)
                            )
                        ) >
<!ATTLIST ElementDef    Type NMTOKEN #REQUIRED
                        Model (Empty|Any|Data|Elements|Mixed) "Data"
                        Content (Open|Closed) "Closed"
                        Root (True|False) "False"
                        Default CDATA #IMPLIED
                        Datatype %DataTypeList; "String"
                        Min CDATA #IMPLIED
                        Max CDATA #IMPLIED
                        MinInclusive CDATA #IMPLIED
                        MaxInclusive CDATA #IMPLIED
                        Fixed (True|False) "False"
                        Length CDATA #IMPLIED
                        Scale CDATA #IMPLIED
                        Precision CDATA #IMPLIED
                        Picture CDATA #IMPLIED>


<!--
*   An AttributeDef element defines an attribute that can be used by
*   ElementDefs to define the attributes that type of element can have.
*   It can have a description and default value subelements, both of
*   which are optional.
*-->
<!ELEMENT AttributeDef  (Description?, Values?) >
<!ATTLIST AttributeDef  Name ID #REQUIRED
                        Default (True|False) "False"
                        Fixed (True|False) "False"
                        Global (True|False) "False"
                        Datatype %DataTypeList; #IMPLIED
                        Occurs (Required|Optional) "Optional"
                        ID-Role (ID|IDREF|IDREFS) #IMPLIED
                        Min CDATA #IMPLIED
                        Max CDATA #IMPLIED
                        MinInclusive CDATA #IMPLIED
                        MaxInclusive CDATA #IMPLIED
                        resource CDATA #IMPLIED>


<!--
*   An internal entity has a name and a value element. It is the same as
*   an internal entity in DTDs.
*-->
<!ELEMENT InternalEntityDef (Value?|Values?) >
<!ATTLIST InternalEntityDef Name ID #REQUIRED>


<!--
*   An external entity has a name and a System Id, and an optional public
*   id. It is the same as an external entity in DTDs.
*-->
<!ELEMENT ExternalEntityDef EMPTY >
<!ATTLIST ExternalEntityDef Name ID #REQUIRED
                            PublicID CDATA #IMPLIED
                            SystemID CDATA #REQUIRED
                            resource CDATA #IMPLIED >


<!--
*   A description is just an open ended content model, which can contain
*   text and desired formatting markup, but it is ignored by the DCD
*   validation mechanism.
*-->
<!ELEMENT Description ANY >


<!--
*   A Group is just a collection of Elements and/or nested Group elements.
*   It defines the ordering of those nested elements and groups. A group
*   must contain at least one element or group or it does not make sense.
*-->
<!ELEMENT Group (Element | Group)+ >
<!ATTLIST Group Occurs (Required|Optional|OneOrMore|ZeroOrMore) "Required"
                RDF:Order (Seq|Alt) "Seq">


<!--
*   Attribute elements just name an attribute used by a particular element.
*   They have no content in the DCD itself, just other attributes.
*-->
<!ELEMENT Attribute EMPTY >
<!ATTLIST Attribute Name IDREF #REQUIRED >


<!--
*   Element elements just name elements within a group, so their content
*   is just the name of the element they refer to. So their content is
*   just PCDATA.
*-->
<!ELEMENT Element (#PCDATA) >


<!--
*   A name element is basically a valid name token, and a value is just
*   open ended markup.
*-->
<!ELEMENT Name (#PCDATA) >
<!ELEMENT Value ANY >
<!ELEMENT Values ANY >


<!--
*   A namespace is just a URL, so we take it as PCDATA. Its validity
*   will be discovered when its used I guess.
*-->
<!ELEMENT Namespace (#PCDATA) >


<!--
*   The Length, Scale, and Precision values are actually numbers but we
*   can only indicate that they are PCDATA here.
*-->
<!ELEMENT Length (#PCDATA) >
<!ELEMENT Scale (#PCDATA) >
<!ELEMENT Precision (#PCDATA) >


----------------------------------------
Dean Roddey
Software Weenie
IBM Center for Java Technology - Silicon Valley
roddey@us.ibm.com

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