> However, I am 
> wondering that if XML Schema 1.0 does not support it, then 
> maybe it's trying to tell me it's not good approach.  Are 
> there any reasons (other than XML Schema 1.0 does not support 
> it) why using the design I presented below is poor?

One can't say that something is poor design without knowing the design
objectives.

One of the main reasons for using what I call "meta-level markup" is that it
allows you to have highly variable data within the constraints of a fixed
schema. For example, you can have a wide variety of documents of the form

<table name="xyz">
<headings>
  <column>a</column>
  <column>b</column>
</headings>
<row>
  <cell>1</cell>
  <cell>2</cell>
</row>
<row>
  <cell>10</cell>
  <cell>20</cell>
</row>

and they all have the same schema; whereas if you use conventional markup

<xyzs>
  <xyz><a>1</a><b>2</b></xyz>
  <xyz><a>10</a><b>20</b></xyz>

then each document needs its own schema.

You seem to be trying to use meta-level markup together with a
document-specific schema, and that's not a combination that works especially
well.

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/  
  


From Jeff.King@n... Mon Jan 07 12:54:57 2008
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