Re: text functions in MathML

Actually,  in the current spec,

    <ci type="string">abc</ci>

which is similar to

    <ci definitionURL="string">abc</ci>

would be better than either of

<ms>abc</ms>
<ci><ms>abc</ms></ci>
<csymbol definitionURL="string">abc</csymbol>

as the distinction between csymbol and and ci
is largely that the ci are data while the csymbols
are names for defined mathematical objects/concepts.

As Robert "hinted" there will be some further
discussions emerging on types and extensions as an outcome of our
last workign group meeting.

As to choice of attribute names things generally evolved from
just having them to making it clear when they differed
from HTML and CSS and that led to using longer more descriptive
names.

Stan D.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Herman Schenck" <herman@velosel.com>
To: "'Stan Devitt'" <jsdevitt@stratumtek.com>; "Robert Miner"
<RobertM@dessci.com>
Cc: "Herman Schenck" <herman@velosel.com>; <www-math@w3.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 08, 2002 9:05 PM
Subject: 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 Friday, 9 August 2002 11:53:55 UTC