xml-dev - Re: XML DTD Creation

[Peter Murray-Rust <peter@ursus.demon.co.uk>]

At 10:50 AM 5/16/00 -0700, Pierre, Sebastian wrote:
>Hi all!
>
>Still asking some silly questions...sorry!

No need to apologize on XML-DEV. Most of us started by asking questions and
we are happy to (try to) answer them. I have learnt at least two new things
from this discussion.

>
> - When defining parameter entities, the parser (IE5...I know;) complains
about non valid characters such as '#' or even '('.
>   For example I have this declaration : 
>   (  link | see | anchor  |  em | quote | citation | copyright | date |
name  | #PCDATA )*
>   for an element content is invalid because of the # in #PCDATA.
>
> - I don't know if I can imbricate more than one level of parenthesis in
element content declaration, ie:
>   ( (first-name, last-name)+, address )*
>   [This example is silly, but the important fact is imbricated parenthesis]
>

I find it a useful strategy to have 2 or more parsers set up to answer
questions like this. There are many high quality parsers as OpenSource or
for free. [Some parsers such as AElfred - which I use a lot - are
deliberately lightweight and give a few false positives and false
negatives.] I recently spent some hours trying to understand whitespace in
parameter entities - I was convinced there was a parser bug until I ran it
through 2 independent ones. 

[When it comes to using this strategy with other applications, such as
XSLT, make sure that you know what versions of the spec, the tool, etc. you
are using.]

	P.


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