DTD confusion (was Re: Lotsa laughs)

David Megginson david at megginson.com
Fri May 28 21:31:11 BST 1999


David LeBlanc writes:

(on DTDs)

 > Ok, now i'm confused David - your second statement seems to
 > contradict your first statement.

If you give me a single, well-formed XML document, I can *always*
write a DTD that describes its structure.  

If you give me a list of structural traits shared by a class of XML
documents (otherwise known as a "document type"), I may not be able to
provide an XML 1.0 DTD that applies to all possible documents in the
same class but to none outside of the class.  I may not even be able
to write a DTD at all.


All the best,


David

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

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