The reason for roots?

• From: Martin Gudgin <marting@develop.com>
• Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2002 14:58:03 -0000
• To: "XML Protocol Discussion" <xml-dist-app@w3.org>
• Message-ID: <008401c1d0e8$ced43b90$707ba8c0@greyarea>

During the recent rework on Part 2 Section 2 and 3 I spent quite a while
thinking about roots as they relate to the data model. It may be that my
imagination is not firing on all cylinders but here are the 'facts' as I see
them;

1.    A root is a node with no inbound edges

2.    There is a path from a root node to all other nodes in the graph

3.    Given 1 and 2 it *is not* possible to have more than one root

4.    Given 1 and 2 it *is* possible to have a graph with no root

So, I'm at a loss as to why I would want to label a given node as the root
of the graph unless it's to avoid the deserializer having to work it out by
inspection. Is this the reason?

All input gratefully received

Gudge

Received on Thursday, 21 March 2002 09:58:30 UTC