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> Personally, I like attribute normalization. Being able to use an XPath
> like @x="y" rather than normalize-space(@x)="y" save keystrokes.
> In fact, for me, one of the most common problems of using using tokens
> in data content is that I invariably forget to normalize-space() the data
> first. This is a nasty problem, of course, because it only shows up when
> certain kinds of markup is used.
>
> Getting rid of attribute normalization is a eumphemism for getting rid of
> tokens at the XML level. Tokens are useful, and they are a major use of
> attributes. Arbitrary strings containing significant whitespace is a minority
> use for which there is a workaround. Also, best practise I18n
> says that strings-for-humans should not be marked-up as attributes; so
> some of the use-cases may have a trade-off that makes them not as
> compelling.
Whew. So I'm not alone on this. I was scratching my head wondering what I
was missing that's so evil about attribute normalization. I've always thought
it was a central part of the usefulness of attributes and went with the very
rough rule "human readable in content, machine readable in attributes".
--
Uche Ogbuji Fourthought, Inc.
http://uche.ogbuji.net http://4Suite.org http://fourthought.com
XML Data Bindings in Python - http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2003/06/11/py-xml.html
Introducing Examplotron - http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-x
mptron/
Charming Jython - http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/java/library/j-jython.h
tml
The commons of creativity - http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x
-think18.html
A custom-fit career in app development - http://www.adtmag.com/article.asp?id=7
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