DTD Formatting: Attribute list Alignment

[Deborah Aleyne Lapeyre <dalapeyre@mulberrytech.com>]

1) Aren't style discussion wonderful? Sometimes substance is easier!

2) I think the most important thing in formatting an attribute
list, especially for a beginner, is to make the three parts very clear:

Every attribute needs a name, a Declared Value, and a Default Value.
The style should make it obvious which is which and what they are,
that's why I like a 3 column format, separated from the beginning
of the ATTLIST:

<!ELEMENT foo (#PCDATA)
>
<!ATTLIST  foo
               att1    CDATA            #REQUIRED
               att2    (a | b | c)       #IMPLIED
               att3    IDREFS           #REQUIRED
               att4    CDATA         #FIXED "A12"


  - first tell me whose attributes
  - then one item  per line with all three parts showing,
    and clearly differentiated

Or maybe

<!ATTLIST  foo
               att1    CDATA          #REQUIRED
               att2    (a | b | c)    #IMPLIED
               att3    IDREFS         #REQUIRED
               att4    CDATA          #FIXED "A12"

3) If anyone wants to see samples of real, large element models
and ATTLISTs, go to:

    http://dtd.nlm.nih.gov/tag-library/1.1/index.html

And click on any of the DTD modules. Get a feel for a one particular
style of a real Tag Library and see if you like it or hate it.

--dal
-- 
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Deborah Aleyne Lapeyre               mailto:dalapeyre@mulberrytech.com
Mulberry Technologies, Inc.                http://www.mulberrytech.com
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