Re: Non-deterministic content model

[Steve Rosenberry <Steve.Rosenberry@ElectronicSolutionsCo.com>]

Marcus Carr wrote:
> 
> It would be non-deterministic if it the processor was faced
> with element x in two contexts (for example), such as:
> 
> <!ELEMENT a ((x, y) | (x, x))?>
> 


Ok, now that I think I understand deterministic vs. non-deterministic
that leads to a couple of other questions:

1) Would rewriting the above as <!ELEMENT a (x,(x|y))?> convert the
original content model to a deterministic one?  As I now understand the
rules, I believe the rewritten content model to be deterministic.  At
'a' I can either have 'x' or nothing.  If I have 'x', it must then be
followed by a single 'x' or 'y'. 

2) If the rewritten form in (1) is indeed deterministic, will parsers do
the boolean algebra for me to get from the original content model to the
rewritten one, or is this going to be a point of incompatibility between
parsers?  XML-Spy seems very happy to validate using either form.



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