Re: On constraining/validating datatypes

At 01:42 PM 5/22/97 -0400, Steven J. DeRose wrote:
>The ERB yesterday discussed the issue of datatypes (among others). I was
>foolish enough to toss out a strawman proposal, so was granted the task of
>tuning it up (into a flaxman, perhaps?) for the WG to discuss.
>
>There seem to be two main axes along which we can differentiate approaches:
>
>1) The range of datatypes we choose to support.
>
>2) The place where datatypes get defined, and then where they get associated
>with particular data (individual element instance; elements that provide
>meta-information; or the DTD).
>
>NOTE: There is a third axis, namely whether datatypes can be applied to
>attributes, to content, or both; but I think a solution that only applies to
>one would look fairly silly so I show all examples in a way that can work
>for both.

There's a fourth axis: Which software module should be in charge of data
type validation, the XML processor or an application?  A number of people
were pointing out the work involved in implementing some such validation
schemes, and it may put us far outside XML-Lang's "development budget."  If
we make XML-Type a separate spec, the existence of a type-validation
application would be implied, the way XML-Link implies the existence of a
link-processing application.

	Eve

Received on Thursday, 22 May 1997 14:47:12 UTC