[plug] XML DTD

[shayne]

Actually, can anyone explain to me whats the point of the DTDs anyway?
They just don't seem to contain any info that aint already implicit in an
XML file.
Consider;
An XML file is used in 3 contexts... Creating them, Processing them and
Human
viewing them.
Creating them is done by a program generally. Surely it's easier to right a
proggy
to generate the given format based on an understanding of the schema anyway
whether
a dtd is there anyway.
Ditto for reading them in code.
DTDs are more eye-ugly and less expressive than the XML for visual
inspection, so again
it begs the question. WHY?

Maybe I just missed the point. I've written many softs that use XML, it's an
idea of the grandest
order, but the DTD's always seem so..... redundant.

Shayne.
----- Original Message -----
From: Colin Muller <colin at twobluedots.com.au>
To: <plug at plug.linux.org.au>
Sent: Monday, November 25, 2002 8:50 AM
Subject: Re: [plug] XML DTD


> > I was looking at schemas and they seem (at least at the glance I had)
> > more complex than DTD's. I think schemas, however, have the option of
> > being more scalable and extendable.
> >
> > There's a few perl scripts floating around the net that can convert
> > DTD's to schemas.
>
> Schemas can express any content model which DTDs can, and offer things
> which DTDs don't, but you'll still need DTDs if you want to use
> entities.
>
> If you want more expressive and constraint possibilities than DTDs
> give, Relax NG is favoured over W3 Schemas by many XML gurus (and is
> much easier to learn than W3 Schemas):
> http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/relax-ng/
> http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/relax-ng/tutorial-20011203.html
> (The Oasis site seems to be down right this minute).
>
> Colin
>
>