RE: text functions in MathML

So for string functions I think that everyone agrees that 

<csymbol definitionURL="concat"/>

is the way to go.

For string constants I see 2 proposed solutions:

1. use <ci>abc</ci> and figure out by the context that "abc" is a constant
and not a varible.
2. use <ms>abc</ms> which is kind of a hack, but will work.

Also, would the following be legal?

3. use <csymbol defintinionURL="constant">abc</csymbol>
4. extending <cn type="string"> which I noticed is not disallowed by the
DTD.

In any case, I think this gets me started.



ps. how did the standard go from tags like "ci", "cn", "fn" to "d e f i n i
t i o n U R L".  It seems "def" would have been more in keeping with the
general style.



-----Original Message-----
From: Stan Devitt [mailto:jsdevitt@stratumtek.com]
Sent: Thursday, August 08, 2002 3:57 PM
To: Robert Miner
Cc: herman@velosel.com; www-math@w3.org
Subject: Re: text functions in MathML



I thought about that too, but was a bit
reluctant to start putting naked presentation
directly into a content construct.

The intent has been to limit use of
presentation to the content of ci and
csymbol... with the exception being 
that ci and csymbol containers don't
need an extra mi layer if the body is just
characters.

Of course, a case could be made for using
ms as the string data type and
for allowing it behaving like ci in 
content constructs but I think
we would need to make that an explicit
exception.

 
Stan.

---- Original message ----
>Date: Thu, 8 Aug 2002 16:42:39 -0500
>From: Robert Miner <RobertM@dessci.com>  
>Subject: Re: text functions in MathML  
>To: herman@velosel.com
>Cc: www-math@w3.org
>
>
>
>Hi.
>
>> One problem I see is that string constants do not have
their own tag.
>
>Note that the <ms> tag from presentation markup is for string
>constants.  You could mixed these tokens with content
extensions as
>Stan suggested, eg.
>
><apply>
><csymbol definitionURL="concat"/>
><ms>abc</ms>
><ms>def</ms>
></apply>
>
>is also valid, if a bit perverse, MathML.
>
>--Robert
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------
>Robert Miner                                   
RobertM@dessci.com
>MathML 2.0 Specification Co-editor                   
651-223-2883
>Design Science, Inc.   "How Science Communicates"  
www.dessci.com
>------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>

Received on Thursday, 8 August 2002 21:12:16 UTC