Re: [Bug 3062] Need to write examples in the spec as valid XML

Sebastian Rahtz wrote:
> 
> Felix Sasaki wrote:
> 
>> I thought of this separation because depending on the schema design, you
>> would use different means. E.g., a highly modularized schema might use
>> PEs / patterns / groups to add ITS attributes to all elements, e.g.
>> <!ENTITY % comm.att ".... %its-local-att;">
>> A schema without such entity layers might just do
>> <!ATTLIST ... its:translate
>>               its:term
>> ...>
>>
>> for each element.
> 
> Hmm. I see. But if the schema is not normative, where do we tell people
> that if they implement the markup, it must follow these constraints?
> For example, if <translateRule> has a mandatory attribute "selector",
> but the schema implementing this is not normative, people can implement
> it with an optional attribute. Doesn't this threaten interoperability?

That's a valid point.

> 
>> However, both schemas would be conformant to
>> http://www.w3.org/International/its/itstagset/itstagset.html#conformance-product-schema
> 
> I could come up with something that conformed to this, but wasn't
> remotely like the current schemas...

that's true as well. I think we have two choices:

- 1 Rely on the prose description, which says (or should say) what is
mandatory. It says even more than a schema, e.g. that the value of
its:selector is an XPath expression.
To be able to do this, we could add s.t. to the conformance clauses
"In addition to the positions of ITS markup declarations, a schema has
to follow the occurrence and value constraints as described in this
document"

- 2 Rely on the ODD definitions, and say that these are normative. (no
matter if they are written as "production rules" or visualized in a
style like http://www.tei-c.org/release/doc/tei-p5-doc/html/TD.html ).


1 has the drawback that people have to read prose. 2 would be fine with
me ...

- Felix

>>> are schemas/dtds always non-normative in W3C specs?
>>>
>> It depends on the spec. E.g., XML Schema defines a normative schema,
>> see http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-1/#normative-schemaSchema
>> XSLT 2.0 a non-normative one, see
>> http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt20/#schema-for-xslt
> 
> but XSLT has an independent formal definition, no?

at least XSLT 1.0 has not: see http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt#conformance and
http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt#notation