RE: [xsl] [OT] Can XML elements contain text as well as other elements?

[Wendell Piez <wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 10:47 AM 5/21/2003, Mike wrote:
> > This is a bit OT, but I am thinking of ways to reduce the
> > depth of an XML doc, to reduce the amount of templates in my xsl doc.
>
> Unless you have layers of elements that are completely redundant, this
> could be counter-productive. Certainly, mixed content (elements and text
> as siblings) can be quite hard to process if you want to do anything
> non-trivial with it.

I agree with Mike that the general aim may be misconceived -- I too have 
seen mixed content used by neophyte designers in places where it causes 
trouble, but confers no benefit (as have all long-time readers of this list).

The best (only?) use case for mixed content is in truly documentary 
applications -- inline tagging to represent inline phenomena (like HTML 
<code>, <i>, what have you). It isn't generally a technique for reducing 
tagging overhead. On the contrary, when the data elements aren't actually 
"mixed" (that is, when they are intended to be pulled apart and used 
separately, not always together), they always benefit from proper labeling 
and wrapping.

This isn't to discourage, it's just to alert that it's a deeper question 
than it may at first appear to be.

Reducing the number of templates in a stylesheet isn't an optimization I've 
ever seen pay off -- the cost elsewhere in the system (complexity of 
processing required; trouble to other users) can be more than it's worth. 
(And many of the nicest stylesheets have lots of itty-bitty, simple templates.)

As Mike says, of course, "completely redundant" tagging is a different 
question.

To declare mixed content in W3C schema, just say "mixed='yes'" on the 
element declaration....

Cheers,
Wendell

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