Thanks to all who have replied so far. From what has been said it sounds as
if AFS are easier to implement and use than appears. Given that XLL could
be implemented using an AF mechanism and that many people seem to think
that AFs will be important in the future of X*L, is this a useful time to
think about what is required for their implementation (ideally for me in
Java). If it really is within DPH ability, this shouldn't be a major job.
May I reduce my ignorance further by asking some simple questions:
- must a DTD (or at least an ATTLIST) always be provided with the document
instance?
- if so, how is this information going to be transmitted to the AF-aware
processor. Will Xapi-J do this?
- is any other information required, or can the processor deduce from the
values transmitted that this is an AF?
- if other information is required, how is it to be included (does SP
require additional arguments/input, for example)
- is the working of the processor completely automatic?
- what is the output of the processor? (a grove?). Can it be represented
by an ESIS stream?
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