Re: [xml-dev] Just nodes please

[Dimitre Novatchev <dnovatchev@gmail.com>]

Replacing an attribute with an element is not a simplification at all.

It is making a simpler XML document  more comlex:

 1. An attribute doesn't have children,  preceding and following siblings

 2. Order of attributes doesn't matter

 3. Can't occur twice -- this leads to significantly simpler
processing than that of an element.

 4. Doesn't have attributes and namespaces.

Due to these facts, not only is processing attributes so much simpler,
but they require significantly less memory.

One can take advantage of these facts and use an attribute for every
non-repeatable data item whose value is atomic.

Or, if these advantages are ignored, an artificially bloated and
complicated document can be created.


-- 
Cheers,
Dimitre Novatchev
---------------------------------------
Truly great madness cannot be achieved without significant intelligence.
---------------------------------------
To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk
-------------------------------------
Never fight an inanimate object
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You've achieved success in your field when you don't know whether what
you're doing is work or play



On Mon, Dec 6, 2010 at 8:39 AM, David Carlisle <davidc@nag.co.uk> wrote:
> On 06/12/2010 16:44, Manos Batsis wrote:
>>
>> On a sidenote, it would be great if
>>
>> <node1 node2="node3" />
>>
>> was equal to
>>
>> <node1>
>> <node2>node3</node2>
>> </node1>
>>
>> so that APIs could be simplified
>
> Such a rule would make it impossible to have the behaviour common in many
> document formats (notably xhtml) that by default child elements are
> processed but unknown attributes are ignored. That model is pervasive
> throughout XML, for instance in the string-value of XPath, the string value
> of your first example is "" the string value of your second is "\nnode3\n"
> so these can never be equal without completely rewriting XPath.  Of course
> specific API for specific vocabulary may choose to treat attributes an
> elements in similar ways, but the core processing could never do that and
> retain any semblance of being a version of XML.
>
> David
>
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