XML schema draft comments: 1.5, 5 confusing missing plurals

Regarding the draft at
http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/PER-xmlschema-2-20040318/:


Section 1.5 says:

   [Definition:]   Constraint on Schemas
     Constraints on the schema components themselves, i.e. conditions
     components ·must· satisfy to be components at all. Largely to be
     found in Datatype components (§4).
   [Definition:]   Schema Representation Constraint
     Constraints on the representation of schema components in XML.
     Some but not all of these are expressed in Schema for Datatype
     Definitions (normative) (§A) and DTD for Datatype Definitions
     (non-normative) (§B).
   [Definition:]   Validation Rule
     Constraints expressed by schema components which information
     items ·must· satisfy to be schema-valid. Largely to be found in Datatype components (§4).

Section 5 says:

   [Definition:]   Minimally conforming processors ·must· completely
   and correctly implement the ·Constraint on Schemas· and
   ·Validation Rule· .

Shouldn't the section-5 wording refer to "the Validation Rules"
instead of "the Validation Rule"?  It's confusing the way it's
currently written.  (There are many things titled "Validation
Rule," so a reference to "the Validation Rules" (or "the
validation rules") would be expected, but instead it refers
to "the Validation Rule.")


Certainly if the definition (section 1.5) is "constraints ..."
(plural) then the term should be plural.  Alternatively, the
singular term could be defined as "a constraint..."

If it is really desired that the singular term "the Validation
Rule" refer to multiple constraints, then the definition should
probably define it as some aggregate rule that consists of those
constraints (e.g., "the 'Validation Rule' is the compound rule
consisting of ...").  (Of course, that would probably be even
more confusing, arguing against this case.)


Daniel

Received on Friday, 11 June 2004 10:56:06 UTC