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In my XML-conformant programming language (Nimble, mentioned here a couple days ago at http://www.kaon.com/SDK ), I did what seemed to me a pretty neat thing using attributes and elements together. In many cases, an object (represented by an Element) needs to reference another object. I allow the Nimble programmer to do this either as: <Image name='splash_screen' etc... /> <Application image='splash_screen' etc... /> -or- <Application etc...> <Image etc.../> </Application> -or even- <Application etc...> <Image name='splash_screen' etc... /> </Application> <SomethingElse image='splash_screen' etc... /> The first approach is generally only useful when a machine is generating the program (export from a 3D modeling tool, in my case). Or if the Nimble programmer is name-happy. The second is just like XML-RPC. Simple, elegant. The last approach is particularly powerful, since it allows me to create graphs in what would otherwise be just a tree language. The simple ID and IDREF DTD constructs (along with an #IMPLIED) then allow validating XML editors to make sure you use defined names. Doing this without attributes would be a real trick, and not nearly as elegant. So while I agree that sticking to just elements or just attributes can be elegant in some contexts, neither rule is going to be the most beautiful in every case. -Joshua Smith xml-dev: A list for W3C XML Developers. To post, mailto:xml-dev@i... Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/xml-dev/ and on CD-ROM/ISBN 981-02-3594-1 To (un)subscribe, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message; (un)subscribe xml-dev To subscribe to the digests, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message; subscribe xml-dev-digest List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (mailto:rzepa@i...)
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