Re: Stylesheet association

Lee writes:
>No -- that would mean that you could only parse XML documents if you
could parse the xlinks in this external document, so the document
would have to become part of the base XML spec, making that language
more complex.

I don't understand this remark (and I did follow the WG's iscussion
of EMPTY, and I do have a lot of sympathy for the result).
                       
An XML-compliant application will have to be able to parse xmllinks,
won't it?  Or are you envisioning applications that can parse XML
but not xmllinks?

Regards,
  Terry Allen    Electronic Publishing Consultant    tallen[at]sonic.net
       specializing in Web publishing, SGML, and the DocBook DTD 
                   http://www.sonic.net/~tallen/
  A Davenport Group Sponsor:  http://www.ora.com/davenport/index.html

From w3c-sgml-wg-request@w3.org Wed Mar 12 10:01:00 1997
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From: lee@sq.com
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Subject: Re: Stylesheet association
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Terry Allen <tallen@sonic.net> wrote:
> Chris Maden writes:
[...]
> | An xlink can be used to associate multiple possible stylesheets with a
> | document.  This method allows an XLG to associate stylesheets with
> | read-only documents.
> 
> Works for me. [...] this other document could also contain
> [...] a summary of all the GIs in the read-only document that
> are EMPTY. That would enable XML (or at least the read-only document)
> to do without the <empty/> syntax, and potentially make many existing
> SGML documents valid XML documents.

No -- that would mean that you could only parse XML documents if you
could parse the xlinks in this external document, so the document
would have to become part of the base XML spec, making that language
more complex.

This has all been discussed ad infinitum in the XML WG list, and the
current draft XML syntax for EMPTY elements is a compromise with good
reasons.  I (reluctantly) refer you to the archive...

The issue of existing SGML documents being valid XML is also much more
complex than just changing <empty> to <empty/>, and needs the use of a
tool like James Clark's SPAM anyway -- which could easily add the / in
empty elements' tags.

Any more on this probably belongs on the XML list, or in private mail!

Lee

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Received on Wednesday, 12 March 1997 20:53:51 UTC