Nested DTDs

[Richard L. Goerwitz]

James Tauber wrote:

> What you *can* do, or rather what the designer of the report DTD can do, is
> write report.dtd as:
> 
> <!ELEMENT report (title,paragraph+)>
> <!ELEMENT title (#PCDATA)>
> <!ENTITY % paragraph.ext "">
> <!ELEMENT paragraph (#PCDATA| %para.ext; emph)*>
> <!ELEMENT emph (#PCDATA)>

Just for the record, this isn't entirely okay.  You're violating a few
"for interoperability" constraints.

First off, the empty parameter entity replacement text is no good in a
content model.  Secondly, even if you replace it with something like
<!ENTITY % paragraph.ext "stuff |">, that's not strictly okay either,
unless you are tricky and cut and paste tokens by defining them all
inside an internal parameter entity.

This ugly mess will actually pass muster:

<!ELEMENT report (title,paragraph+)>
<!ELEMENT title (#PCDATA)>
<!ENTITY % para.ext "stuff |">
<!ENTITY % paradecl "<!ELEMENT paragraph (#PCDATA| %para.ext; emph)*>">
%paradecl;
<!ELEMENT emph (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT stuff (#PCDATA)>

I'm always wondering why all this "for interoperability" language is
in the spec.  It's hard to know what weight to assign something that's
neither legal nor illegal - or something that's technically valid, but
discouraged in some usage contexts that aren't very clearly defined in
the spec.

-- 

Richard Goerwitz
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