=?UTF-8?Q?The_semantics_of_an_XML_document_is

Is it always so clear?

To me, the problem of semantics is not schematic or functional, but historic: finding out what on earth people have actually stuffed into the element and then figuring out which ones of those ideal hoped-for functions don't produce garbage, and what to do about it.

So semantics is about what you have, not what you wanted (schemas), nor what you may need now (functions).

Rick

On Sun, 9 Jan. 2022, 00:04 Roger L Costello, <costello@mitre.org> wrote:

Hi Folks,

The semantics of an XML document is determined by the actions taken on the XML document.

Consider this XML document:

<airplane-flight>
<duration units="hours">1</duration>
<speed units="kilometers-per-hour">500</speed>
</airplane-flight>

What is its semantics?

Answer: it has no semantics because it has no actions.

Pair up the XML document with actions that compute duration * speed (i.e., distance traveled by the airplane flight):

The semantics of the XML document is: 500

Pair up the XML document with different actions and it has different semantics:

Now the semantics of the XML document is: 310.686

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Wicked cool!

Comments?

/Roger