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My comments will be on the proposed approaches, and I'm sure that others will comment on SAX (takes me back to my days of breakpointing an OS and verifying the set/cleared bits in the registers): First, a question: Do you really need to work at the binary level? Having said that: Cases 1 and 2: Although these represent a possible approach, the issue I see is that they do "more work" than is necessary - that is, they not only list the flags, but a Boolean value of "true". If you really need to list the Boolean value for the set flags, you might as well list all flags, with a value of "false" for those that are cleared. Otherwise, the best approach is (in general, separate from synxtax) to list only the flags. Case 3: Would not recommend, as you are using empty elements to represent data, which is not generally considered to be a sound approach (elements should represent metadata about the data). Case 4: If you list the base 10 equivalent of the binary value, there should be no reason to list the individual flags - as with Cases 1 and 2, this is more work than necessary. If the receiving system can convert (or can be made to convert) a base 10 number into its equivalent binary representation, than simply providing the base 10 representation should be enough. Case 5: Did not see any value in mixing fonts with the numeric values here. Kind Regards, Joe Chiusano Booz | Allen | Hamilton Strategy and Technology Consultants to the World Ronald Kent Gibson wrote: > > Dear All > > A general question and a specific one. > > Someone once told me that you should only used attributes when you know that > you will never need another attribute. (Case 1) > > And then I read somewhere to forget about attributes except for the > exception of an id attribute. (Case 2) > > Does anyone care to comment and clarify this. > > And to add a specific question. > > I want to define a set of 64 bit flags, and I want to only define ones that > are true. > > What do you reckon is the best ways to do this: > > Case 1 > > <x flag0="true" flag4="true"/> > > or > > Case 2 > > <x> > <flag0>true</flag0> > <flag4>true</flag4> > </x> > > or something like: > > Case 3 > > <Flags><2></2><7></7><18></18></Flags> > > or > > Case 4 > > <Flags Value="20"> <!- Binary 10100 --> > <flag3/> > <flag5/> > </Flags> > > or > > Case 5 > > <FlagDef> > <Serif>2</Serif> > <Italic>7</Italic> > <SmallCap>18</SmallCap> > </FlagDef> > > <Flags Value="9"> > <Serif>true</Serif> > <Italic>true</Italic> > </Flags> > > or something better? Can anyone see any problems with any of the > propositions? > > I would like the resulting XML to be easy to parse and to transform ( ie not > tricky xpath or recursion required). > > I haven't decided whether to use events such as those found in sax. > > any comments or suggestions would be gladly appreciated. > > regards > > kent gibson > > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > The xml-dev list is sponsored by XML.org <http://www.xml.org>, an > initiative of OASIS <http://www.oasis-open.org> > > The list archives are at http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/ > > To subscribe or unsubscribe from this list use the subscription > manager: <http://www.oasis-open.org/mlmanage/index.php>
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