On Tue, 2001-09-18 at 09:32, Wendy Hall wrote:
> Can colleagues advice me as to the reasons for not repeating data in two
> elements. If the creator is the same as the publisher should the data
> appear in both elements and if not what are the reasons for not repeating
> the information?
It is my belief that XML contains data, and that data must be described
in such a way as to be logical and unambiguous(sp?)
Thus, if the data for every possible record will have a logical
equivelence between the Creator and the Publisher, then you can combine
them in your data.
I dislike the idea of having login such as:
"The Creator is the same as the Publisher, unless a different Creator is
defined. When printing the Creator, move the word 'The' (if it exists)
to the end of the string, preceding it with a comma."
For example <dc:Publisher>The University of Edinburgh</cd:Creator> is:
"The University of Edinburgh" as a Creator, but "University of
Edinburgh, The" as a Publisher as *WRONG*..
Different data requires different elements - even if it's deat easy for
a human brain to flip the wording around..
An alternative way of thinking about this could be:
"For each element, write a short descriptive paragraph explaining
precisely what it encompases. If you discover that there is more than
one interpretation of the data, you need two elements"
(Am I just confusing everyone here, or does this make sense?)
--
--==++
Ian Stuart
A man in serious need of a Brain Transplant
|