xml-dev - Structured Attributes

["Bent Rasmussen" <runnable@hotmail.com>]

Attribute Organization

This is an alteration of Henry Thompson's proposed syntax for structured 
attributes. I have a similar idea, but as far as I remember this is a 
different syntax.

Syntax

To introduce structured attributes, one could make an element like this

<.>
  ...
</.>

which would serve as a collection of attribute structures for the context 
element. Semantically the "." element would mean attribute container. This 
would look like,

<context>
<.>
  <attribute>
    ...structure...
  </attribute>
  <attribute>
    ...structure...
  </attribute>
</.>
...content...
</context>

So the immediate children of the "." element would be attributes.

Attributes Organization, an Example,

<document>
<.>
  <copyright>
    <person>
      <given>Henry</given>
      <family>Thompson</family>
    </person>
  </copyright>
</.>
<section>
<.>
  <subjects>
    <subject>XSchema, the making of</subject>
    <subject>...</subject>
    <subject>...</subject>
  </subjects>
  <terminology>
    <term>
      <name>Something</name>
      <definition>To explain.</definition>
    </term>
  </terminology>
</.>
<paragraph>Essentially...</paragraph>
</section>
</document>

Perspective

I've been pretty ignorant to schema and query considerations, but it just 
seems like a nice syntax. In constructing my own document type it seemed to 
me that I often wanted to express metadata about the element content, but 
that it it would be less elegant to express it like this,

<element>
<meta>
...
</meta>
<content>
...
</content>
</element>

So,

Perhaps my approach is totally broken, but for myself it seems intuitive and 
elegant.

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