|
As we mentioned parenthetically, the above DTD is "not quite valid".
The above DTD really only says that the parser should expect a document with a root element
named CONTACTS. It does not say anything about the contents or structure of
that document. However, to be valid, a document's DTD must specify every detail of its
structure!
To specify the structure, we must populate the "[ELEMENT_DEFINITIONS_GO_HERE]"
portion of the DTD with a Document Type Definition. Document Type
Definitions declare all of the valid document elements using Element Type
Declarations (ETDs).
ETDs specify the name of elements and whether or not those elements may have
any children. Elements may have several types of children ranging from
none, to plain parsed character data, to other elements, to other elements with their own
children, to any of the above.
ETD's follow the generic syntax of
<!ELEMENT ELEMENT_NAME CHILDREN_NAMES>
In the case of our CONTACTS element we might see something like the following:
<?xml version = "1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone = "yes"?>
<!DOCTYPE CONTACTS [
<!ELEMENT CONTACTS ANY>
]>
<CONTACTS>
</CONTACTS>
In this case, the DTD defines an XML document containing a single root
element named CONTACTS (don't forget XML is case sensitive)
that may contain ANY (case sensitive) type of child, including
parsed character data or other elements.
Note however, that though CONTACTS "could" contain other elements, no
element other than CONTACTS is actually allowed by the DTD since no other elements
are defined. All elements in an XML document must be defined in the DTD.
Thus, the following XML, though well-formed, is invalid!
<?xml version = "1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone = "yes"?>
<!DOCTYPE CONTACTS [
<!ELEMENT CONTACTS ANY>
]>
<CONTACTS>
<CONTACT>
<NAME>Roger Kaplan</NAME>
</CONTACT>
</CONTACTS>
| NOTE: Unlike elements, parsed character data within an "ANY"
declaration, does not need to
be defined...thus, the following XML document would be valid:
<?xml version = "1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone = "yes"?>
<!DOCTYPE CONTACTS [
<!ELEMENT CONTACTS ANY>
]>
<CONTACTS>
<CONTACT>
Here is some plain parsed character data.
</CONTACT>
</CONTACTS>
|
For the document to be valid, you must also define the <CONTACT>
and <NAME> elements.
<?xml version = "1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone = "yes"?>
<!DOCTYPE CONTACTS [
<!ELEMENT CONTACTS ANY>
<!ELEMENT CONTACT (NAME)>
<!ELEMENT NAME (#PCDATA)>
]>
<CONTACTS>
<CONTACT>
<NAME>Roger Kaplan</NAME>
</CONTACT>
</CONTACTS>
In this case, we see that we have defined an XML document with a single
root element named CONTACTS. CONTACTS may contain parsed character data
or child elements (ANY). In particular, CONTACTS may contain the child
element CONTACT, CONTACT contains its own child element named NAME (NAME), and
NAME contains parsed character data (#PCDATA)!
|
NOTE: It is bad form to use the ANY keyword for any element other than
the root element. Generally, you should try to be as conservative as
the DTD wants to be. Think in terms of everything being denied besides
what you specifically allow.
Also, note that the order in which you specify
ETDs does not matter. Thus,
<!ELEMENT NAME (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT CONTACTS ANY>
<!ELEMENT CONTACT (NAME)>
would work just as well as
<!ELEMENT CONTACTS ANY>
<!ELEMENT CONTACT (NAME)>
<!ELEMENT NAME (#PCDATA)>
Finally, note that you may not specify elements with
the same name but with different definitions such as:
<!ELEMENT CONTACTS ANY>
<!ELEMENT CONTACT (NAME)>
<!ELEMENT CONTACT (EMAIL)>
<!ELEMENT NAME (#PCDATA)>
The double definition of CONTACT would cause an error.
|
The ANY and #PCDATA keywords are pretty straightforward. And in this
case, the definition of the NAME element as a child of CONTACT was pretty
simple as well.
|
NOTE:
Elements should begin with either a letter, an underscore (_) or a colon (:) followed by some combination
of letters, numbers, periods (.), colons, underscores, or hyphens (-) but no white space, with the
exception that no tags should begin with any form of "xml". It is also a good idea to not use colons as
the first character in a tag name even if it is legal. Using a colon first could be confusing.
Further, though the XML 1.0 standard specifies names of any length, actual XML processors may
limit the length of markup names.
|
However, as we mentioned before, the regular expression
functionality offered through DTD's allows you to get very flexible with
the definition/declaration of elements and their children.
Let's take a look.....
Previous Page |
Next Page |
Table of Contents
|
