Re: [xml-dev] DTD ID REF

[Matt Gushee <mgushee@havenrock.com>]

On Thu, Jul 18, 2002 at 09:22:32AM -0400, Yallala, Bhaskar wrote:
> 
> I have a DTD file in which I have element A which has two attributes with
> IDREF properties. 
> Now while creating xml file using DTD, how can I refer attribute IDREF
> defined in another xml file?

You can't. That is a limitation of DTDs: IDs must be unique *within a
given document*, and IDREFs must refer to an ID in the same document.
If you want to enforce--hmm, I'm going to say "referential integrity,"
borrowing from the database world--if you want to enforce that across
separate documents, you need to do it in your application, perhaps with
the help of XPointer.  Unfortunately not all that many XML toolkits
support XPointer; one that I know does is 4Suite (http://4suite.org).

-- 
Matt Gushee
Englewood, Colorado, USA
mgushee@havenrock.com
http://www.havenrock.com/