Subject: Re: do you use pi's? From: "John E. Simpson" <simpson@xxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Sat, 03 Apr 1999 14:49:52 -0500 |
At 10:07 AM 4/3/99 -0800, Mark D. Anderson wrote: [example snipped] >This *really* felt like something that might be done with a PI, but >i've never used one before. But is there any point? >I find it really hard to arrive at a definitive criterion for what >should be in the instance, and what a PI (the example above is deliberately >sharp; others are harder). And using a PI means that the processor >(or processors, since there may be a stack) has to start treating >multiple types of nodes. > >Comments? Does XML need PI's? Not sure what you mean by "the processor... has to start treating multiple types of nodes." But in general I'd say no: XML *per se* doesn't need PIs, any more than it needs comments. My reading of the purpose of PIs is that they signal to some specific downstream application that it must do something in particular, behave in some particular way, enter into some particular state -- in short must *know* something meaningful to it, but not to an interpreter (human or machine) of the document's actual content. In particular, note that a PI's pseudo-attributes (like real ones) are incapable of expressing any sort of structure: you can't nest attributes. To answer the question asked in the Subject: line, I myself use only the "standard" PIs, like <?xsl-stylesheet...>. I'm not a developer of XSL-processing software; if I were, I think they'd assume much greater significance to me. ========================================================== John E. Simpson | The secret of eternal youth simpson@xxxxxxxxxxx | is arrested development. http://www.flixml.org | -- Alice Roosevelt Longworth XSL-List info and archive: http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
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