Prai Jei wrote:
> Peter Flynn set the following eddies spiralling through the space-time
> continuum:
> 
>> Prai Jei wrote:
>> CSV is for rectangular data one level deep. If that is the extent of
>> your data, then possibly CSV is a better way to represent it.
> 
> Which it was - sales information from a till. (Item sold, quantity, price,
> account number.) It was the target system that required it in XML.

Ah. One of those. Nothing so simple as

<transaction id="abc123">
   <item  code="xyz789" quantity="3" price="29.99" account="1234567890"/>
</transaction>

That would certainly be verbose, but It's worth bearing in mind design 
goal #10 of XML, "Terseness in XML markup is of minimal importance."

>> Try representing the following in CSV. It might be possible, but I
>> submit that XML was the correct choice in this instance.
>>
>> <div0 type="law tract">
>>    <div1 type="primary text">
>>      <p><lb n="4"><term id="g1">Is mesiuch cach fear fine cunai a
>>      fintiud</term> <term id="g2">naide rean</term> <term id="g3">naide
>> [ & mucel mo vpon þis wyse ]

It's from a mediaeval legal document written in Old Irish, with glosses 
on the meaning of almost every phrase. Not easy to represent in any 
system, especially when it's important because some of the laws might 
still be in force.

///Peter