- From: Michael Sperberg-McQueen <U35395@UICVM.UIC.EDU>
- Date: Wed, 30 Oct 96 17:03:58 CST
- To: W3C SGML Working Group <w3c-sgml-wg@w3.org>
On Wed, 30 Oct 1996 14:59:04 -0500 I said: > ... >Agreed unanimously: > ... > - to use the string '/>' as the NET delimiter in the SGML > declaration of XML documents But I forgot to add the important constraint that in XML the delimiter '/>' is explicitly a tag-close delimiter for empty elements, and may not be used to end start-tags for non-empty elements, or as a null end-tag (NET), as described in 8879, clauses 7.4.1.3 and 7.5.1.3. This constraint is essential in order to ensure that empty elements, and *only* empty elements, have tags of the form <e/>. The identification of '/>' with the NET delimiter is exclusively a technique to allow Full-SGML systems to read XML documents. XML does not use any form of minimized start- or end-tags (ERB decision on question A.4, announced by Tim Bray on 9 October) and thus has, in effect, no NET delimiter. Current Full-SGML systems will not typically have an option to allow the user to request that elements declared EMPTY and elements with a CONREF attribute for which a value is specified, and only such elements, be written out using the form <e/>. We may hope that this will change. In the meantime, the form <e> is legal, as long as the empty elements are declared as such. -CMSMcQ
Received on Wednesday, 30 October 1996 18:30:33 UTC