We finished another step of the new architecture.
Now all entity definitions are gathered in one external DTD.
As an external DTD can only be connected to the calling one by the top
element, we had to create an optional dummy element
"OptionalDummyElementForExternalEntities". If anybody has a problem with
that minor inconvience, please reply. This element does not need to be
defined in any XML file.
The main advantage of this structure now is that entities, which have to be
defined for several dtds, are now central. One definition is enough.
Whenever the structure of any dtd changes - even when elements will be moved
from one dtd to another - we need not touch the entities.
For my personal feeling this is the final design. From now on we will just
talk about isolating some more sections into external dtds, which just means
duplicating the process carefully at some other place.
Just keep in mind that the "UPDF Locale.dtd" is not an external dtd, but a
separate, independent one.
BTW: Of course, dtds will not appear on the end-user's workstation. Only the
XML files will show up there. Dtds are only necessary to validate the XML on
the developer's workstation.
So this whole discussion will not affect the end-user at all.
Regards
Norbert Schade
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Oct 17 2000 - 11:31:57 EDT