xml-dev - RE: Array content model

[Andrew Layman <andrewl@microsoft.com>]

John OSullivan suggested cited an example in the schemas specification in
which a series of like-named elements was contained by an element apparently
representing a collection, here named "items".

  <purchaseOrder>
    <items>
        <item partNum="872-AA">
            <!-- detail elided -->
        </item>
        <item partNum="926-AA">
            <!-- detail elided -->
        </item>
    </items>
  </purchaseOrder>

John mentioned that his working group (FpML) is debating whether this is a
good style, or whether it would be better to avoid the collection element.
I don't wish to attempt to answer that question briefly, largely because it
is not a simple answer and depends on the semantics one has in mind.  It
depends on those semantics much more than on an attempt to omit tags for
brevity or add extra ones to make mapping to certain languages easier. (You
can find some useful discussion of this within the RDF Model and Syntax
paper, http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-rdf-syntax/.)

However, I believe that I was the author of the original example from which
the present one in the schemas paper evolved.  I'd like everyone to know
that the example was not trying to promote one style over the other; merely
to show one example for the purposes of discussing syntax.

Regarding the implications for schemas that John asked about, either style
is representable in a schema.

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