Subject: Re: XML/SMIL resources?
From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no>
Date: 1999/03/07
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp,comp.lang.scheme
Message-ID: <3129839763647354@naggum.no>

* "Steven M. Haflich" <smh@franz.com>
| <! ENTITY % ename "para (#PCDATA" >
| <! ENTITY % econtent " | italics | bold)" >

* Tim Bradshaw <tfb@tfeb.org>
| That's a bad flaw, if it's true.  I say `if it's true' because I thought
| half the point of XML whas that it should be possible to write
| non-validating processors that *didn't* require the DTD.  There's a whole
| lot of stuff about making empty elements have a special form which seems
| to have been designed just for this.  Does any XML person know the real
| story?

  the above declarations cannot occur outside the DTD, so it doesn't matter
  that this incredible cruftitude is restricted to the DTD.

  BTW, the above fragment is not legal XML or SGML.  the entity boundaries
  are part of the syntax.  give a form like <!ELEMENT %ename %econtent>,
  the parser will actually see

    <!ELEMENT %ename para (#PCDATA Ee %econtent | italics | bold) Ee >

  and neither Ee (Entity end) nor a parameter entity references are allowed
  at those points.

  there's a reason why I stopped working with SGML.  don't make me explain.

#:Erik