Attributes with Intent

[Peter Murray-Rust]

At 08:33 04/05/98 -0400, David Megginson wrote:
>Peter Murray-Rust writes:
>
> > It's reasonable to assume that generic text-aware XML software
> > might be asked "please find all elements in a document which are
> > expressed in German." It can't look for all elements with
> > xml:lang="de" because they don't have this explicitly. So general
> > mechanisms such as XPointers can't be used, and bespoke software
> > must be written. This software (presumably) finds all elements
> > which *do* have the attribute and continues recursively.
>
>From a logical perspective, your query is simply
>
>  Find all elements in a document where the element or the nearest
>  ancestor with a value for the xml:lang attribute specifies "de" as
>  the attribute's value.
>
>With SDQL, for example, this test is surprisingly simple:
>
>  (equal? (inherited-attribute-string "xml:lang") "de")
>
>Your point is well-taken, though: fragments of XML documents are often
>tightly bound to their context (similar situations would involve
>attributes for effectivity, security level, revision status, etc.).
>
>
>All the best,
>
>
>David
>
>-- 
>David Megginson                 ak117 at freenet.carleton.ca
>Microstar Software Ltd.         dmeggins at microstar.com
>      http://home.sprynet.com/sprynet/dmeggins/
>
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Peter Murray-Rust, Director Virtual School of Molecular Sciences, domestic
net connection
VSMS http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/vsms, Virtual Hyperglossary
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