Embedding Content as Element Content or As An Attribute Value

[Chris]

Also, it seems that using an <Author> tag without a VALUe attribute
makes sense if Mr. Baker isn't converting back and forth to objects at
all, but is just doing something simple with authors - which I have a
sneaking suspicion is all he's trying to do.
        
Jonathan Robie wrote:
> 
> At 09:17 AM 9/30/97 -0400, Tyler Baker wrote:
> 
> >I would think that in these cases an "author" tag should embed its
> >content as follows <author>Mr John Smith</author>, rather than how
> >Microsoft CDF embeds its content which is <author VALUE="Mr John Smith"
> >/>.
> 
> I can't speak for Microsoft, but my guess is that they are simply using XML
> in the manner most analogous to objects in object oriented systems. In an
> object, the attributes are the data values:
> 
> class Author
> {
>         String name;    // e.g. "Mr John Smith"
> };
> 
> Here they have used the name VALUE in a similar way:
> 
> class Author
> {
>         String VALUE;  // e.g. "Mr John Smith"
> };
> 
> One very easy way to change objects into XML elements is to use one element
> for each object, and use attributes to model the data members:
> 
> <author VALUE="Mr John Smith"
> >/>
> 
> The reason attributes are better for this is that an object may have many
> data members, and these are distinguished by names. The element content
> only has one place to put things, and there is no name associated with it.
> 
> >Is this simply just a design preference, or else is there a concrete
> >reason why what seemingly is content should be embedded as an attribute.
> 
> To me, Microsoft's method makes sense if what you are doing is converting
> objects to XML, but your preferred method ("<author>Mr John
> Smith</author>") makes more sense if you are converting objects to XML and
> back.
> 
> Jonathan
> 
> 
> jonathan at texcel.no
> Texcel Research
> http://www.texcel.no
> 
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