> > We have a spec called "XML-Data W3C Note 05 Jan 1998", which
> > discusses schemas. It is not clear from the document what a
> > schema is used for or what it's purpose is. Is it for designing
> > the XML buffer only or is it read by the parser? Is it an
> > extension to XML? Are they even necessary in basic XML?
>>>XML-Data is a note that was submitted to the W3C by Microsoft and a
>>>couple of partners -- it has no official status (a W3C "Note" means
>>>roughly "here's a neat idea from one of our members").
Ok, that's clear.
>>XML 1.0 DTDs and proposed replacements/enhancements such as
>>Microsoft's XML-Data and XML-Dev's XSchema perform three distinct
>>roles:
>>1. Provide a schema for validating the *logical structure*
>> (element/attribute/data) structure of an XML document; as a side
>> effect, structural schemas can also provide enough information to
>> control a guided XML authoring tool.
How is this different from what DTDs do? Don't DTDs validate the *logical
structure* of an XML document?
>>2. Declare the entities (internal strings or external objects) that
>> make up the *physical structure* of an XML document.
Don't DTDs do this?
3. Provide default logical content for an XML document (such as
default values for attributes, though XML-Data goes further).
Some people have argued -- quite convincingly, I think -- that these
roles should be kept separate: they are mixed together right now for
historical compatibility with ISO 8879:1986 DTDs.
>>>
How about the question of namespaces? Is this legal XML?
<1>
<1>data</1>
<2>data</2>
</1>
or do you need namespaces?
Thanks,
Sam Gentile