Re: June 15 draft -- DL

Murray Maloney (murray@sco.COM)
Thu, 15 Jun 95 21:43:45 EDT

Joe English writes:
> Daniel W. Connolly <connolly@beach.w3.org> wrote:
>
> > * added verbiage about DT, DD when they don't occur in pairs
>
> It now reads:
>
> > The content of a DL element is a sequence of DT elements and/or DD
> > elements, usually in pairs. Multiple DT may be paired with a single DD
> > element. Documents should not contain multiple consecutive DD elements.
>
> What about cases where a term has multiple definitions?
> ...
> <DT>markup
> <DD>(n.) text or annotations added to a document to convey
> information about it
> <DD>(v.) to add markup to a document
> ...
>
We talked about this at the meeting in Chicago, and I was
never happy with the result. It is undoubtedly true that
a document can have multiple terms followed by a single
definition, and a single term with multiple definitions.
While it is possible to argue that a similar visual effect
can be achieved by using <BR> or <P> elements within either
a <DT> or <DD>, that is not the point.

I think that the content model for DL should be:

<!ELEMENT DL - - (DT+,DD+)*>

The verbiage could go like this:

The content of a DL element is a sequence of DT elements
and DD elements, usually in pairs. However, multiple
DT elements may be paired with a single DD element, and
a single DT may be paired with multiple DD elements.

I have probably overlooked some obvious reason why someone
would want to have a <DT>+ without any corresponding <DD>,
or vice-versa. I'm sure that some kind soul will point out
the error of my ways. Thanks in advance. :-)

Murray
===========================================================================
Murray C. Maloney Internet: murray@sco.com
Sponsor member of Davenport Group Member of IETF HTML Working Group
===========================================================================
Disclaimer: I'm speaking for myself. 'T ain't nobody else to blame but me.