Re: entity arrays/quotes

Eric Bickford (eric@macweb.com)
Mon, 8 Dec 97 22:13:46 -0800

>>3) Does anyone have an opinion on how &entities; can best be used with a
>>database application? For example, assume you declare in your DTD a list
>>of &entities;, one for each database field name/value. If we are to
>>expect browsers to parse an xml document with entities, how can a found
>>table or hit list of values get substituted?
>
>I'm not sure entities are the way to go for this. WHy not just generate
>your HTML or XML on the fly the way any number of excellent products
>do right now? -Tim

But these database products don't currently comply with XML markup
standards. Granted they're server-side apps so it's not a real problem,
while XML seems largely designed from a client-side perspective. But I
think it important to extend the syntax standards of XML to server-side
apps as well. For example, a database &fieldname; entity could be the
proper markup for a database CGI to insert field data rather than perhaps
an <ELEMENT>.

Which leads to another question... I doubt declared &entity; names can
have a space (e.g. &field name;)? Can they?

I'd love to hear from anyone with opinions on how best to meld XML
templates with databases services.

Eric Bickford eric@macweb.com
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