RE: [xml-dev] How to avoid the sequens of child elements in DTD, yet keep the cardinality?

["Dharmesh Shah" <dharmesh@telocity.com>]

Albena,

When the order is not important you can do like this
<!ELEMENT header (Identification | Weight | Category | Keyword )* >

or
<!ELEMENT header Identification, ( Weight | Category | Keyword )* >

but in your case, since there restrictions on the no of occurrences you the
order has to be specified. I don't think there is any other way out.
<!ELEMENT header (Identification, Weight?, Category+, Keyword* )>

Regards,

Dharmesh

-----Original Message-----
From: Albena Georgieva [mailto:albena@info.nl]
Sent: Wednesday, November 14, 2001 5:15 AM
To: Xml-Dev (E-mail)
Subject: [xml-dev] How to avoid the sequens of child elements in DTD,
yet keep the cardinality?


Hi there,

I am creating a DTD document and I have difficulty to express
that the element type Header:

1. must have one and only one child element of type Indentification
2. Can have [0 ... 1] Weight children elements
3. Must have at least one Category child element
4. Can have [0 ... n] Keywords
5. The order of the different children is not important
6. If there are several children of the same type, then they should be
following each other

Good example:
<Header>
   <Keyword>Navratilova</Keyword>
   <Keyword>Tennis</Keyword>
   <Identification id="1111"/>
   <Category>Sports</Category>
</Header>
Another good example:
<Header>
   <Category>Sports</Category>
   <Keyword>Navratilova</Keyword>
   <Keyword>Tennis</Keyword>
   <Identification id="1111"/>
   <Weight priority="3"/>

</Header>

Not accepted example
<Header>
   <Category>Sports</Category>
   <Keyword>Navratilova</Keyword>
   <Identification id="1111"/>
   <Keyword>Tennis</Keyword>
   <Weight priority="3"/>
</Header>

I tried as follows:

<!ELEMENT header (Identification| Weight? | Category+ | Keyword* )+>
But then also this example becomes valid which is not what I am aiming to:

<Header>
   <Category>Sports</Category>
   <Keyword>Navratilova</Keyword>
   <Keyword>Tennis</Keyword>
   <Identification id="1111"/>
   <Weight priority="3"/>
   <Category>Sports</Category>
   <Identification id="2222"/>

</Header>

And if I say so:
<!ELEMENT header (Identification, Weight?, Category+, Keyword* )>

It is better, but then we have to comply to the sequence of the children,
which is what I want to avoid ...
Any ideas, help please?

I wish you all a very nice day!
Greeting,
Albena Georgieva


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