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.