Re: [xml-dev] Use DTDs!

["G. Ken Holman" <gkholman@CraneSoftwrights.com>]

Roger, you often posit situations that are
contrasting black-and-white with no middle ground
or few or no alternatives.  I find this
misleading and I worry about the impression on readers who don't know better.

For all the points you cite, my decision to use
RELAX-NG for the information structure and DTD
entities for the content structure holds equally
as well for me, but the semantics of ISO/IEC
19757-2 RELAX-NG validation are far more
expressive than those found in DTD
validation.  Maybe not for your example
situation, but the co-occurrence constraints and
a number of other powerful features of RELAX-NG
can model the constraints of a document in such a
way that unburdens downstream applications.

T:\ftemp>type aircraft.xml
<aircraft>
            <model>Boeing 747</model>
            <altitude units="feet">12000</altitude>
</aircraft>

T:\ftemp>type aircraft.rnc
start = element aircraft
          { element model
                    { text },
            element altitude
                    { attribute units { "feet" | "meters" },
                    text }
          }

T:\ftemp>jing -c aircraft.rnc aircraft.xml

T:\ftemp>

Examples in RELAX-NG of linking an attribute's
presence or value to allowed element content, and
offering mutually-exclusive attributes, guide the
user to creating source XML information that
truly expresses relationships without downstream
processing having to do its own validation of
constraints that cannot be expressed by DTDs.

The XML processor interprets the entity structure
and delivers the infoset to the application ...
for modeling the document constraints I advise my
customers to consider RELAX-NG and its use has served them well.

. . . . . . . . Ken

At 2016-04-29 17:40 +0000, Costello, Roger L. wrote:
> Hi Folks,
>
> Heavy-duty validation is not always needed.
> Sometimes all that is needed is to verify that
> XML instances are using the right set of tags.
>
> Let me state it stronger: I have observed that
> “verifying that XML instances are using the
> right set of tags” is how most developers view
> XML validation. Their XML Schemas are merely
> thinly veiled versions of DTDs. Developers opt
> to perform the heavy duty data checking in Java code and/or in a database.
>
> For many (most?) situations use DTDs, not XML Schemas. Here’s why:
>
> 1. Less tools needed: Only one tool is needed –
> a validating XML processor. Conversely, if you
> use XML Schemas for validation, you need two
> tools – an XML processor plus an XML Schema
> validator. The less tools needed, the better.
>
> 2. Less to read: If you stick to DTDs, you only
> have to read the XML specification, which is
> about 36 pages long. If you use XML Schemas, you
> have to read XML Schema Part 1, which is around
> 350 pages and XML Schema Part 2, which is around 100 pages.
>
> 3. Less complexity: DTDs are several orders of
> magnitude simpler than XML Schemas.
>
> 4. Less verbosity: The DTD syntax is streamlined
> and efficient (kind of analogous to XPath in
> terms of being streamlined and efficient). The
> XML Schema syntax, on the other hand, is bloated and inefficient.
>
> 5. Robust validating tools: The capability of
> validating against a DTD has been around a long
> time, the tools are rock-solid. Comparatively,
> the capability of validating against an XML
> Schema has been around a short time, the tools are less rock-solid.
>
> 6. Inexpensive: Validating XML processors are
> either free or inexpensive. True, there are some
> free XML Schema validators, but some of the most
> popular XML Schema validators are quite pricy.
>
> 7. Suited to Architectural Forms: [Norman Gray
> wrote:] a zeroth-order description of
> Architectural Forms is that they were a
> transformation of a document, specified within
> one or other DTD rather than in a separate
> transformation language. This did not make for
> luminous syntax.  No.  But it was I think the
> conceptually Right Place for this
> transformation, it meant that that
> transformation could be implemented efficiently within the parser, and
> it meant that it was natural to conceive of the
> transformation as 'pulling' the AF instance
> document out of the DTD instance document, which is a Really Useful Idea.
>
> 8. Infoset happiness: [John Cowan wrote:] There
> are a number of XML DTD features which affect
> the infoset returned by a compliant parser.  If
> they are in the internal subset, the parser MUST
> respect them; if they are in the external
> subset, then any parser that reads the external
> subset likewise MUST respect them.
>
> Example: Validate that the following XML
> instance document uses this set of tags:
> aircraft is the root element, within it are
> model (which contains data) and altitude (which
> contains data and has an attribute, units, whose
> value is feet or meters). The following DTD is very adequate.
>
> DTDs – live long and prosper!
>
> /Roger
>
> aircraft.xml
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
> <!DOCTYPE aircraft PUBLIC "-//example//aircraft//EN" "aircraft.dtd" >
> <aircraft>
>             <model>Boeing 747</model>
>             <altitude units="feet">12000</altitude>
> </aircraft>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>
> aircraft.dtd
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> <!ELEMENT aircraft (model, altitude)>
>
> <!ELEMENT model (#PCDATA)>
>
> <!ELEMENT altitude (#PCDATA)>
>
> <!ATTLIST altitude
>              units (feet|meters) #REQUIRED>

--
Check our site for free XML, XSLT, XSL-FO and UBL developer resources |
Streaming hands-on XSLT/XPath 2 training @US$45: http://goo.gl/Dd9qBK |
Crane Softwrights Ltd. _ _ _ _ _ _ http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com/x/ |
G Ken Holman _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ mailto:gkholman@CraneSoftwrights.com |
Google+ blog _ _ _ _ _ http://plus.google.com/+GKenHolman-Crane/posts |
Legal business disclaimers: _ _ http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com/legal |


---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus