Re: Style and read-only [was: Which style first?]

Terry Allen (tallen@sonic.net)
Tue, 11 Mar 1997 07:48:26 -0800

Henry Thompson writes in response to me:
| > My question is perhaps off-topic here on xml-dev, and I know everyone
| > is busy preparing for WWW6, but I ask you all to reflect on it as
| > an issue that needs resolution later on: What do I do to associate
| > a style sheet with a read-only document, e.g., one that resides on
| > some other server than my own, or that has been digitally signed?
| > (And assume that this document has a doctype declaration already.)
|
| Create a stub document with the SAME DTD which has a single top-level
| element which replaces itself (using XML-LINK) with the document you
| care about.

Then the top-level element has to be a linking element, which is
not true of most DTDs. But creating your own document is necessary,
I think; it may have to be an instance of a DTD that defines the
relations among the things pointed to. The other approach I can
think of is a MIME type constructed for the purpose.

| Or if you don't like links, like this
|
| <!DOCTYPE yours PUBLIC "http://<that read-only document's DTD" [
| <!ELEMENT yours - - (rod-top-level-element-name)>
| <!ENTITY rod PUBLIC "http://<that read-only document's body">
| ]>
| <yours>
| &rod;
| </yours>
|
| and in either case associate the style sheet with your stub in
| whatever way we end up agreeing on.

That won't work if the read-only document has a doctype declaration,
unless XML allows multiple doctype declarations (or I'm missing
something).

Regards,
Terry Allen Electronic Publishing Consultant tallen[at]sonic.net
specializing in Web publishing, SGML, and the DocBook DTD
http://www.sonic.net/~tallen/
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