xml-dev - Re: Arbitrary Infoset boundaries (was Re: Common XML - Final

[Michael Champion <Mike.Champion@softwareag-usa.com>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jonathan Borden" <jborden@mediaone.net>
To: <keshlam@us.ibm.com>; <xml-dev@lists.xml.org>
Sent: Friday, August 04, 2000 8:32 PM
Subject: RE: Arbitrary Infoset boundaries (was Re: Common XML - Final


> But if DOM L3 will be based upon the Infoset, and the Infoset doesn't
> contain DTDs then how will that work? Will there be an Infoset L2,3 etc?
Or
> won't DOM L3 be Infoset based ... in which case we are back to the
question
> that started this whole discussion. Now I'm confused.

Historically the InfoSet has come along behind the syntax specs and the DOM
and has attempted to impose order post-hoc.  That presumably will continue
... The DOM has had a requirement for a long time to provide an API to
access content model information and to validate an instance against a
content model.  *Some* conception of the content model is clearly necessary
to support these requirements.

The DOM won't "contain DTDs", it will use an abstract conception of a
content model that is sufficient to encompass what DTDs define, the basics
of what XML Schemas will define, and for that matter what Relax or XDR
define.  (Presumably at some point in the future there will be some specific
"XML Schema DOM" much like there is an "SVG DOM", but that won't be part of
DOM Level 3 per se).

I don't know how we'll eventually rationalize the relationship between DOM
Level 3 and the InfoSet.  I for one would have no problem with the notion
that the InfoSet conception of an XML instance is separate from the
conception of the schema that defines its content model.  The DOM provides
access to both, and to the operations (such as validation) that operate on
both simultaneously.  Also, the XML Schema specification talks about a "post
schema validation (PSV) InfoSet"; the DOM WG (and ultimately the XML
community) will have to figure out exactly what the relationship between the
InfoSet that a parser produces and the PSV InfoSet.

As I've said earlier, the W3C doesn't have a master plan that all the groups
must follow; the master plan and the specs co-evolve in parallel.  A world
that began with the InfoSet and where syntax, APIs, constraints, and
transformations all work completely off this logical model would indeed be
more orderly than more parallelized one one we live in, but I doubt if it
could operate in Internet Time.