RE: Suggested guidelines for using local types. (was Re: Enlightenmentvia avoiding the T-word)

["Fuchs, Matthew" <matthew.fuchs@commerceone.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jonathan Borden [mailto:jborden@mediaone.net]
> Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2001 11:28 AM
> To: Jonathan Borden; Fuchs, Matthew; xml-dev@lists.xml.org
> Subject: Re: Suggested guidelines for using local types. (was Re:
> Enlightenmentvia avoiding the T-word)
> 
> 
> 
> >
> > Of course one define identical syntaxes with DTDs which 
> don't need to
> invoke
> > such "local" and "global" differentiations. I wonder what 
> the real need
> for
> > this complexity is?
> >
> 
> Let me restate this, because the point I am trying to make 
> has nothing to do
> with the distinction between DTDs and XSDL or RELAXNG, and 
> everything to do
> with how namespaces are used in XML documents.
> 
> That should read: "Of course one can define identical 
> syntaxes with other
> schema languages ( e.g. RELAXNG) which don't need to invoke 
> ..." The point
> being here, that there is a distinction between the label 
> given to a pattern
> of elements (e.g. the complexType name) and the name of the 
> element itself.
> 

Yes, there is a distinction between complexType labes and element labels,
but I'm not sure how that's relevant here.

> In well-formed documents, there is only one root/document 
> element, so are
> you suggesting that we call all elements which are not 
> allowed to be at the
> top level "local"? That would be fine with me, but I would 
> hardly suggest
> that all such elements be unqualified. 

That is a practice which makes no sense to me.  That would be like having no
namespaces at all.

I understand that this 
> is not exactly
> how -XSDL defines- "local element" but what I am trying to 
> get at is not how
> such a term is defined in XSDL, but rather what the practical 
> meaning of
> this term is.
> 

How the term is defined in XSDL is _a_ practical meaning of this term, where
the term is applicable to an aspect of the semantics of the element (can
only appear in a particular context - and no schema author can validly allow
it to appear elsewhere), and not to its appearance in an instance.  I don't
think calling all elements other than the root "local" is a practical
meaning.  A practical term would be to call elements one of root, interior
or leaf, following standard terminology for trees.  I really am talking only
about XSDL local elements - I think the traditional notion of element
corresponds to what in XSDL terminology are global elements, local elements
are something different, and it is a good idea to distinguish them so as not
to clobber applications in strange ways.

Matthew