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> Joe English wrote:
>
> >
> > Jonathan Borden wrote:
> >
> > > Different formats each have their advantages. The clear advantage of
> > > explicit tags, is that the meaning is less ambiguous. e.g.
> > >
> > > <date>
> > > <day>02</day>
> > > <month>02</month>
> > > <year>01</year>
> > > </date>
> > >
> > > vs.
> > >
> > > "02-02-01"
> >
> > In the first example, did you mean 1 CE or 2001 CE?
> > If the former, under which calendar should the day
> > and month be interpreted?
>
> I've not specified, but that isn't needed. The former example is tagged, and
> so the "01" may easily be interpreted with respect to the <year> element,
> and its associated semantics (for example a schema might tell us, or a
> namespace name might reference something like
>
> <div id="year"><p>Years in the Christian calender, to which 2000 is
> added</p></div>
I see no reason why the exact same provision cannot be made in the case of
<date>2002-08-06</date>
In the schema, you can say:
"A date formatted as specified in ISO-8601"
BTW, I always used
2002-08-06
On purpose
*you* came up with "02-02-01", which, as well as your XML representation, has
well-known problems in the general case.
> > Sorry, I really don't see any decrease in ambiguity
> > in the first form.
> >
>
> Ambiguity is _decreased_ not eliminated because aside from which year we are
> talking about we know which lexical value is intended to represent _some
> year_ as opposed to _some day_.
I also don't see any reduction in abiguity. You have explicitly put into the
instance data that is well-documented in ISO-8601. You've only moved the
authority, and I personally prefer the "YYY-MM-DD" form because it leaves the
authority where it belongs.
> If it didn't reduce ambiguity _some_ then there would hardly be a need for
> XML, or SGML for that matter.
Can you justify this statement? Seems a leap to me.
--
Uche Ogbuji Fourthought, Inc.
http://uche.ogbuji.net http://4Suite.org http://fourthought.com
Track chair, XML/Web Services One Boston: http://www.xmlconference.com/
Basic XML and RDF techniques for knowledge management, Part 7 -
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-think12.html
Keeping pace with James Clark - http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/libra
ry/x-jclark.html
Python and XML development using 4Suite, Part 3: 4RDF -
http://www-105.ibm.com/developerworks/education.nsf/xml-onlinecourse-bytitle/8A
1EA5A2CF4621C386256BBB006F4CEC
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