Hi M., On Tue, 31 Dec 2002 08:15:20 -0700 "M. Evans" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> XML is really beautiful in that it ensures longevity and migration > capability for arbitrary data. It eliminates the need for "custom" > file formats that are readable by only one program. [ ] Seems you understood what really XML does. :-( XML is _NO_ guarantor for "easy to use by anybody else", just because it is "plain text". VCF is the very same: pure plain text. For using a foreign XML file you'll still need to know it's intended structure, else the only thing you can do is: checking if it is "well formed" (in opposite to check for "validity" too!) and some "wild guessing" if a tag named "surname" is in fact the last name, or only an abbreviation of "super user real name". See the new MickeySoft Office which makes use of XML too: you can 'read' it, as it is plain text, but you can't interpret the content correctly unless MS offers the white papers. They do describe it as "open to exchange information, not formats". So you can extract the pure text information from that file, but there's no guarantee _you_ can connect an image description text to the appropriate image, simple because you don't know which text in that XML file belongs to which image. So the consequence is: your demand for TB! using a XML-based AB is only half the story; you'll have to demand too "PhoneDeck" using _the very same_ structure. Means: TB! and PhoneDeck _have to_ use the very same "DTD" or "Schema", or at least one of them has to use a DTD/Schema that's a subset of the other _plus_ he'll have to ignore (and leave intact when handling the file!!!) tags unknown to him (but specified in the "bigger" DTD/Schema). -- Peter ________________________________________________ Current version is 1.62 | "Using TBUDL" information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
