Re: [xml-dev] %x;? - Opportunity for pedantry and exegesis

[Joe English <jenglish@flightlab.com>]

Christopher R. Maden wrote:

> I concur (though you'd know better than I).  I was actually a little
> surprised to note that (foo ?) isn't legal, not even in SGML (see <URL:
> http://crism.maden.org/consulting/pub/sgmldefs.html#[130] >).

I had always thought this was a typo in the spec
(missing a 'ts' between 'generic identifier' and
'occurrence indicator').  As it turns out, it's
specified this way to keep the grammar LL(1);
otherwise there would be an ambiguity at '+'
between occurrence indicators

	<!ELEMENT x - - FOO + >

and inclusion exceptions

	<!ELEMENT x - - FOO +BAR>


--Joe English

  jenglish@flightlab.com