DTD Question: Attributes vs Elements

[Marcelo Cantos]

On Sat, Mar 20, 1999 at 12:46:03PM +0100, Jarle Stabell wrote:
> Tim Bray wrote:
> > Attributes differ in  that 
> > - they get white-space-normalized
> > - their order is not significant
> > - you can't have more than 1 with the same name on an element
> > - they can't contain any internal structure
> 
> They also don't "pollute" the namespace.

This could probably be formalised into three categories: data that
_must_ be stored in an attribute, data that _cannot_ be stored in an
attribute, and everything else.  For example:

MUST:   * Enumerated values (status can be active, inactive or
          closed).

CANNOT: * Structured information
        * White space matters
	* order is significant
	* More than one item for any one name

OTHER:  * General string values
	* URL's

Maybe the wisdom of experience could subdivide OTHER into SHOULD,
SHOULDN'T and DOESN'T MATTER (which could address the namespace
pollution issue).


Cheers,
Marcelo

-- 
http://www.simdb.com/~marcelo/

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