Re: [xml-dev] Newbie question:DTD problem(#PCDATA)

["Rick Jelliffe" <ricko@allette.com.au>]

From: "Allen Chu" <achu@dscs.com>

> Thanks for your responses. Allow me to go back to my original
> thought. What I present in element bio is more than one #PCDATA or
> footnote. Changing to from "+" to "*" makes bio contain zero or more
> #PCDATA/footnote. In this case, neither #PCDAT nor footnote is required
> for bio. And that violates my original design. Therefore, I don't think
> "*" will make them equvalent from my understanding. So, what I actualy
> try to achieve is to let bio at least have one element:#PCDATA or
> footnote.
 
You cannot use DTDs for this.

The new generation of schema langages allow this. In Schematron, for example,
you can specify something like this

 <rule context="bio">
    <assert test="count(*) = count(footnote)">
        The only element type allowed in a "bio" is "footnote"
    </assert>
    <assert test="string-length(normalize-space()) &gt; 1 and count(bio)=0">
        If a "bio" element has text, it cannot have a "footnote" element
    <assert>
 </rule>

Cheers
Rick Jelliffe