Re: Public review of XML 1.0 Second Edition

>[Definition: [E97]An element with no content is said to be empty.]

Does "no content" mean the element's content is an empty string, or that the
element's content does not exist?

E.g., In the first interpretation it is true that an empty element's content
contains no character data; in the second it is meaningless since the content
does not exist.  "No content" suggests the second, but this will require
many more circumlocutions or separate special cases (much like doing set
theory without the empty set) when trying to be precise.  I recommend the
first interpretation--which should then be made more explicit.
-- 
Dave Peterson
SGMLWorks!

davep@acm.org

Received on Monday, 14 August 2000 23:37:34 UTC