Re: White spaces in Dtd.

Peter Murray-Rust (Peter@ursus.demon.co.uk)
Sun, 15 Jun 1997 09:53:12 GMT

In message <33A3808F.2841@agentsoft.com> "Tikva Schmidt" writes:
> I'm a developer at AgentSoft Ltd. We create tools for Web
> Automation and are now trying to make our inteligant agents work
> with XML.
> In trying to create a Dtd parser I came across several unclear things
> for example the usage of white spaces in the dtd.It seems like the
> grammer has set rules for where space are allowed or needed,and when
> they can be replaced by an entity refering to space.I also thought the
> dtd was supposed to be easy to parse.I came across something which
.........................^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I sympathise with this :-). Parameter Entities (PEs) initially gave parser
writers and the ERB/WG a lot of problems. The current rules (I refer to 970331)
are simpler than initially, but I must admit that I don't find that particular
part of the spec easy to understand. I think it's fair to say that
**apart from PEs** the DTD is easy to parse. It may also be that the current
rules for PE substitution can be described in a simple way and I just haven't
picked this up.

I am sure that you will get answers from people more knowledgeable than me,
but also remember that a revision of the spec is due on July 1. What is in
it is determined by the ERB, but I would be surprised if there were not
clarifications relating to PEs :-).

P.

-- 
Peter Murray-Rust, domestic net connection
Virtual School of Molecular Sciences
http://www.vsms.nottingham.ac.uk/