Re: Options for dealing with IDs

Chris Lilley:
>   1) Require DTD validation of all instances.
>   A fully validating XML processor will, almost as a side effect,
>   result in all attributes of type ID being so noted in the Infoset.
>
>   Advantages:
>   - existing mechanism (DTDs)
>
>   Disadvantages:
>   - existing mechanism is poor,
>   - not namespace aware,
>   - can't declare a content model of 'any' that really means 'any',
>   - can't use with mixed namespace documents easily
>   - hinders composability
>   - needlessly conflates validation with decoration
>   - leaves well formed documents in a backwater
>   - retrogressive step


"Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>:

> 2. Hinders composability.  Not really.  Hinders
> tools that are only well-formed aware.

Chris is right. XML wasn't really designed with composability in mind, and
in the XForms group we are particularly feeling this, because XForms are
compositions of several XML documents. You can't just paste an XML document
into the middle of another, you have to do all sorts of other things too;
since an embedded document can't have an XML prolog, you have problems with,
principally for the XForms group, identifying attributes of type ID.

Best wishes,

Steven Pemberton,
Chair, W3C XForms Working Group

Received on Tuesday, 21 January 2003 05:29:38 UTC