extensibility in XSchema?

[Simon St.Laurent]

John Cowan wrote:
>Chris Maden wrote:
>
>> The other option would be for XSchema to standardize some sort of
>> documentation elements, similar to what's outlined above, or similar
>> to the DocBook reference pages.
>
>That is the option I originally proposed for the content model
>of the DOC element, using a small subset of HTML 4.0.
>See http://www.ccil.org/~cowan/XML/ibtwsh.dtd for the subset.

As I approach 2.6, XSchema Extensions, this becomes an enormous issue.  The 
outline proclaims:

2.6 XSchema Extensions
2.6.1 Documentation Extensions
2.6.2 Constraints on Extensions

Right now the DTD contains ONLY XSC:Doc (when I remember the namespace prefix) 
elements for extension.  The DTD I'm working with uses only the 
itsy-bitsy-HTML elements for that area.  To me, this seems inadequate for many 
purposes, like data typing elements.  (For straight documentation, I think 
it's great.)

All of these other purposes may, of course, be achieved by reference, as in:
<MyXSC:DataType ElementName="Latin" Type="Text" MaxLength="90"/>
Where the Latin element would be specified to contain text of some sort, no 
more than 90 units (bytes, characters, etc. depending on the spec) worth.

I'd like XSchema to include a way for this information to be kept with the 
element declaration.  While inclusion by reference works, it's not a lot of 
fun to do cross-referencing when scanning through a huge schema.

We could
a) add another subelement for XSC:ElementDecl
b) give XSC:Doc a content model of ANY
c) avoid doing this entirely
d) do something else I haven't thought of yet.

Suggestions? In the meantime, I'm working on namespaces.

Simon St.Laurent
Dynamic HTML: A Primer / XML: A Primer / Cookies


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