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xmlreferencenodesidentifier

XML refering best practice

I am writing an XML-sheet in which I manage a list of document types and a list of a document collection. It currently looks like this:

<collection>
    <types>
        <type id="T001">CD</type>
        <type id="T002">Drawing</type>
        <type id="T003">Book</type>
        <type id="T004">Photo</type>
        <type id="T005">Letter</type>
    </types>
    <languages>
        <lang id="EN">English</taal>
        <lang id="FR">French</taal>
    </languages>
    <documents>
        <document>
            <type>T001</type>
            <lang>EN</lang>
        </document>
        <document>
            <type>T003</type>
            <lang>FR</lang>
        </document>
        <document>
            <type>T001</type>
            <lang>EN</lang>
        </document>
        <document>
            <type>T002</type>
            <lang>EN</lang>
        </document>
    <documents>
</collection>

I manage the types and languages lists within the XML sheet instead of using DTD entities so I can query those using XSL / Xpath.

As you can see the and elements are used in two different cases: in the first lists (types / languages) I use them as identifier, and later on I use them as reference element, but with the same node name. I am thinking it's not very neat using the same node name for both the identifier and the refering element. What would be another, neater way to do this?

Solution

  • It's just a matter of convention. Personally, I would change it to:

    <documents>
    <document>
        <typeRef>T001</type>
        <langRef>EN</lang>
        ...

    Or:

    <documents>
    <document type="T001" lang="EN">
    ...