At 11:16 20/12/97 +0000, Sean Mc Grath wrote:
[... lots of very exciting stuff ...]
>a simple bank account model:
>
><!element BankAccount (Open,Transactions,Close)>
><!attlist BankAccount Balance CDATA>
><!element Open,Close EMPTY>
><!element Transactions (Debit|Credit|Enquiry)*>
><!element Debit (FundsAvailable|FundsNotAvailable)>
This isn't WF XML for several reasons. A correct version might read:
<!ELEMENT BankAccount (Open,Transactions,Close)>
<!ATTLIST BankAccount Balance CDATA #REQUIRED>
<!ELEMENT Open EMPTY>
<!ELEMENT Close EMPTY>
<!ELEMENT Transactions (Debit|Credit|Enquiry)*>
<!ELEMENT Debit (FundsAvailable|FundsNotAvailable)>
>...
[...]
>
>within a syntactic asses roar of DTDs. A Jackson structure editor is a bit
We all make syntactic asses of ourselves and I have done so on numerous
occasions, especially on XML-SIG. People have been very patient - "they
know what I mean". But here the readers *don't* know what you mean. So we
can all try to be well-formed asses :-).
Therefore:
(a) try to be very careful about XML examples and related matters. People
will say "this is written by an expert so it must be right - I'll cut and
paste it..."
(b) tactfully and gently correct any errors that *do* get through. It won't
be taken badly - we all make errors. For example I've corrected the
"element" to
"ELEMENT" as this is now required by the PR. [At one stage it wasn't, and
it's often easy to work with outdated versions.]. If it's unclear, you
might ask
"why isn't this "X"? - the answer may be revealing.
I have *never* seen any flames on these lists when people are corrected for
genuine mistakes.
P.
Peter Murray-Rust, Director Virtual School of Molecular Sciences, domestic
net connection
VSMS http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/vsms, Virtual Hyperglossary
http://www.venus.co.uk/vhg