Re: Mixed Content Models

Tim Bray (tbray@textuality.com)
Tue, 22 Sep 1998 22:53:14 -0700


At 11:47 AM 9/21/98 -0700, Jerome McDonough wrote:
> <!ELEMENT qstn (#PCDATA | (preQTxt?, qstnLit?, postQTxt?, forward?,
> backward?, ivuInstr*))*
>
>Is this a legitimate content model under XML section 3.2.2?
>Msxml doesn't have a problem with it, and nsgmls using the -wxml flag
>also happily parses the DTD. IBM's xml4j, however, complains:
>"Codebook.dtd: 1256, 33: This content model is not matched with the
>mixed model '(#PCDATA|FOO|BAR|. . .|BAZ)*': '(#PCDATA|(preQTxt?, qstnLit?,
>postQTxt?,forward?,backward?,ivuInstr*))*".

This is *totally* illegal per the spec. Is that the msxml with IE4
or IE5? If 4, no biggie, they were up-front about being behind. If
IE5, I'm flabbergasted and MS needs to hear about it now.

As for nsgmls, James has been very up-front about its lack of
completeness as an XML processor. xml4j is right; I expect you'd
also get complaints from XP and Lark. -Tim