DTD confusion (was Re: Lotsa laughs)

David Megginson david at megginson.com
Mon Jun 7 16:21:12 BST 1999


Chris Lilley writes:

 > > If you give me a single, well-formed XML document, I can *always*
 > > write a DTD that describes its structure.
 > 
 > Yes. You declare each observed element, give it a content model of any,
 > declare each observed attribute, and make it PCDATA.

In fact, you can do it without resorting to ANY; you could also type
the attributes much more closely as well.  There is already existing
software that will take a stab at it for you.

The original point, though, was that by definition a document is not
well-formed if it cannot be described by a DTD, not that the absence
of a DTD (or other schema) is insignificant.


All the best,


David

-- 
David Megginson                 david at megginson.com
           http://www.megginson.com/

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