Re: How to get the 1st element in DTDD

[Marcus Carr <mrc@allette.com.au>]

Murali Mani wrote:

> Anyways, though I have always believed that the schema should specify the
> possible root types, people have always said against this, I have always
> waited for one good reason for not specifying the root of the document in
> the schema, but unfortunately, I do not think I have seen any... I will
> keep waiting for some good reason ...

There are two very distinct phases to creating an XML dataset - one involves the analysis
and specification of the eventual model (via the schema or DTD) and the other is the
creation of the data to populate the model. These tasks are often carried out by very
different people - in many cases, they won't even belong to the same organisation. Why
would you presume that the analysts so completely understands the tools and people who
will be creating the data, that they are capable of dictating what possible root elements
will be adequate for the task? Documents are often compilations of XML fragments created
in isolation - if data creators couldn't specify the root arbitrarily, they would have to
either be able to modify the schema or create (and maintain) compliant subset schemas.
Neither of these are appropriate in a production environment.


--
Regards,

Marcus Carr                      email:  mrc@allette.com.au
___________________________________________________________________
Allette Systems (Australia)      www:    http://www.allette.com.au
___________________________________________________________________
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
       - Einstein