Describing tables in XML

Michael Kay M.H.Kay at eng.icl.co.uk
Tue Dec 8 11:16:21 GMT 1998


> I am a XML newbie and trying to write my first DTD.
> One thing I want to delcare in my DTD is a table.

"Table" can mean two things.

It can mean data, as in a relational table, in which case you should use
tags that reflect the objects and properties you are describing, e.g.
<STUDENTS>
<STUDENT><NAME>John</NAME><COURSE>Maths</COURSE></STUDENT>
<STUDENT><NAME>Mary</NAME><COURSE>History</COURSE></STUDENT>
</STUDENTS>

Or it can mean a two-dimensional structure of rows and columns with
undefined semantics, in which case you might as well use the HTML tags,
leaving out any rendition attributes if you want to abstract away from the
final appearance.

Mike Kay


xml-dev: A list for W3C XML Developers. To post, mailto:xml-dev at ic.ac.uk
Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/xml-dev/
To (un)subscribe, mailto:majordomo at ic.ac.uk the following message;
(un)subscribe xml-dev
To subscribe to the digests, mailto:majordomo at ic.ac.uk the following message;
subscribe xml-dev-digest
List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (mailto:rzepa at ic.ac.uk)




More information about the Xml-dev mailing list