Re: [xml-dev] Best Practice: id-idref or external entities?

[Daniela Florescu <dflorescu@mac.com>]

My personal point of view would be very simple to express: avoid them if you can. 

They mix very badly with XQuery and co. 

Best regards
Dana

Sent from my iPhone

> On Oct 8, 2015, at 2:06 PM, Costello, Roger L. <costello@mitre.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi Folks,
> 
> What is your experience with using id-idref? Good experience? Bad experience? It seems to me that the id-idref pair has a lot of resemblances to GOTOs, which implies that it might be wise to avoid id-idref.
> 
> An alternative to using id-idref is to use external entities. What is your experience with using external entities? Good experience? Bad experience? It seems to me that external entities have a lot of resemblances to macro expansion, which is used with good effect in assembly programming, which implies that it might be good to use external entities.
> 
> Below are two examples: the first uses id-idref and the second uses external entities. Which approach do you prefer? Or perhaps there is another approach that you prefer?  /Roger
> 
> ----------------------------------------------
>                 id-idref
> ----------------------------------------------
> <Books>
>    <Book>
>        <Author idref="RB" />
>        <Title>Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah</Title>
>    </Book>
>    <Book>
>        <Author idref="RF" />
>        <Title>All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten</Title>
>    </Book>
>    <Book>
>        <Author idref="RB" />
>        <Title>Jonathan Livingston Seagull</Title>
>    </Book>
>    <Authors>
>        <Author id="RB">Richard Bach</Author>
>        <Author id="RF">Fulghrum</Author>
>    </Authors>
> </Books>
> 
> ----------------------------------------------
>               external entities
> ----------------------------------------------
> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
> <!DOCTYPE Books [
>   <!ENTITY RichardBach SYSTEM "RichardBach.xml">
>   <!ENTITY RobertFulghrum SYSTEM "RobertFulghrum.xml">
> ]>
> <?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="identity.xsl"?>
> <Books>
>    <Book>
>        &RichardBach;
>        <Title>Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah</Title>
>    </Book>
>    <Book>
>        &RobertFulghrum;
>        <Title>All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten</Title>
>    </Book>
>    <Book>
>        &RichardBach;
>        <Title>Jonathan Livingston Seagull</Title>
>    </Book>
> </Books>
> 
> ----------------------------------------------
>            RichardBach.xml
> ----------------------------------------------
> <Author>
>    <Name>Richard Bach</Name>
> </Author>
> 
> ----------------------------------------------
>            RobertFulghrum.xml
> ----------------------------------------------
> <Author>
>    <Name>Robert Fulghrum</Name>
> </Author>
> 
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