xml-dev - RE: DTD/Schemas with repeated structure

[Justin Lipton <justin@speedlegal.com>]

Thanks to everyone who replied.

My conclusion (unless I've missed something) is that it basically can't be
done generically meaning that DTD/Schemas have to be written to cater for
every occurrence.
My motivation is a shorter, simpler DTD/Schema to represent content.

i.e. There does not seem to be any sort of architectural form such that one
can define

<!ELEMENT Unicorn,Minotaur,Gremlin (*Name, *Type)>
 		<!ATTLIST *Name (latin|common) "common">
 	<!ELEMENT *Type (#PCDATA)>

Such that the DTD understands Unicorn,Gremlin,Minotaur,
UnicornName,GremlinName,MinotaurName and
UnicornType,GremlinType,MinotaurType.

Justin.





-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Vint [mailto:dvint@slip.net]
Sent: Friday, 25 August 2000 07:42
To: justin@speedlegal.com
Subject: Re: DTD/Schemas with repeated structure


This is one of the "features" that XML dropped from SGML. Not quite the form
you have but you could list all the element names together in the same
definition so you only had one thing to manage.

An alternate way to manage this is to use parameter entites as follows:

<!ENTITY % common.atts "MammalName (latin|common) 'common'">
<!ENTITY % common.content "MammalName, MammalType">

and then use

<!ELEMENT Mammal %common.content;>
<!ELEMENT Mammal %common.atts;>

..dan

>
> Hi,
>
> I was wondering if anyone has come across this problem.
> We are currently using a DTD that has the following structure.
> Ignore the actual names used here as they are purely for illustrative
> purposes but assume that there is no choice but to use such a structure:
>
> <!ELEMENT Mammal (MammalName, MammalType)>
> 	<!ELEMENT MammalName (#PCDATA)>
> 		<!ATTLIST MammalName (latin|common) "common">
> 	<!ELEMENT MammalType (#PCDATA)>
>
> <!ELEMENT Fish (FishName, FishType)>
> 		<!ATTLIST FishName (latin|common) "common">
> 	<!ELEMENT FishType (#PCDATA)>
>
> <!ELEMENT Bird (BirdName, BirdType)>
> 		<!ATTLIST BirdName (latin|common) "common">
> 	<!ELEMENT BirdType (#PCDATA)>
>
> Image dozens of elements like this!
>
> Is there a way (either with a Schema or a DTD) to generalise this type of
> structure such that:
> <!ELEMENT * (*Name, *Type)>
> 		<!ATTLIST *Name (latin|common) "common">
> 	<!ELEMENT *Type (#PCDATA)>
>
> Cheers,
> Justin.
>
>
>