Re: about the OBJECT tab

On Fri, 4 Oct 1996, Carl Morris wrote:
> | analyze that reply.  It would be better to *require* at least one
> | attribute within each OBJECT tag adequate for making the descision.
> 
> One holdup may be whether or not SGML supports this behavior ...  SGML
> parsing problems with EMBED was one of the reasons for OBJECT...

  SGML allows particular attributes to be marked as required, but "1 of 3
is required" is not doable in the document type declaration.  This suggests
that either of two approaches be used:

	1)  Decide on a single attribute considered sufficient.  The
	    current definition of OBJECT does not appear to lend itself
	    to this form of interpretation; at least one of TYPE or
	    CODETYPE is needed to be meaningful.

	2)  Write it in the specification document.  Just say "At least
	    one of the attributes X, Y, and Z must be specified in the
	    OBJECT start tag."

  I'd be perfectly happy with the later approach, though an SGML parser
could not validate this.  (After all, it's not an SGML requirement, it's
a document type requirement.)  Tools such as weblint could still be used
to check this aspect of compliance.


  -Fred

--
Fred L. Drake, Jr.
fdrake@cnri.reston.va.us
Corporation for National Research Initiatives
1895 Preston White Drive
Reston, VA    20191-5434

Received on Friday, 11 October 1996 13:46:09 UTC