Re: IDREF

Lars Marius Garshol (larsga@ifi.uio.no)
22 Mar 1998 16:16:56 +0100


* Peter Murray-Rust
|
| Are there any examples of XML documents that use IDREF?

I've got one at

<URL:http://birk105.studby.uio.no/www_work/xml/sgmlglos.xml>
<URL:http://birk105.studby.uio.no/www_work/xml/glos_xml.dtd>

| The XML-REC (in XML) would appear to do so as there are a number of
| attributes ending in *REF, but since I have not yet found the DTD
| this is guesswork.

Actually, that's one DTD it would be very nice to have for testing
purposes. Is it available anywhere? (Please?)

In my experience ID/IDREF is very nice for simple cross-references
inside a document, since they're so simple to use. (The error handling
need not be Draconian. nsgmls-like behaviour where the reporting can
be turned off is IMHO sensible for this, since there may be invalid
references while the document is being written.)

| IDREFs are concise and simple to implement(?).

Compared to XLL, yes, but they do require a parser that reads the
DTD. I've not added them to my own parser yet, but they won't require
much work (unless there are hidden surprises, of course).

-- 
"These are, as I began, cumbersome ways / to kill a man. Simpler, direct, 
and much more neat / is to see that he is living somewhere in the middle /
of the twentieth century, and leave him there."     -- Edwin Brock

http://www.stud.ifi.uio.no/~larsga/ http://birk105.studby.uio.no/

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