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Daniel Veillard300f7d62000-11-24 13:04:04 +000089<p>Table of Content:</p>
90<ol>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +000091<li><a href="#General5">General overview</a></li>
92<li><a href="#definition">The definition</a></li>
93<li>
94<a href="#Simple">Simple rules</a><ol>
Daniel Veillard9c466822001-10-25 12:03:39 +000095<li><a href="#reference">How to reference a DTD from a document</a></li>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +000096<li><a href="#Declaring">Declaring elements</a></li>
97<li><a href="#Declaring1">Declaring attributes</a></li>
Daniel Veillard300f7d62000-11-24 13:04:04 +000098</ol>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +000099</li>
100<li><a href="#Some">Some examples</a></li>
101<li><a href="#validate">How to validate</a></li>
102<li><a href="#Other">Other resources</a></li>
103</ol>
104<h3><a name="General5">General overview</a></h3>
105<p>Well what is validation and what is a DTD ?</p>
Daniel Veillard300f7d62000-11-24 13:04:04 +0000106<p>DTD is the acronym for Document Type Definition. This is a description of
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000107the content for a family of XML files. This is part of the XML 1.0
108specification, and allows to describe and check that a given document instance
Daniel Veillard64e73902000-11-24 13:28:38 +0000109conforms to a set of rules detailing its structure and content.</p>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000110<p>Validation is the process of checking a document against a DTD (more
111generally against a set of construction rules).</p>
112<p>The validation process and building DTDs are the two most difficult parts
113of the XML life cycle. Briefly a DTD defines all the possibles element to be
114found within your document, what is the formal shape of your document tree
115(by defining the allowed content of an element, either text, a regular
116expression for the allowed list of children, or mixed content i.e. both text
117and children). The DTD also defines the allowed attributes for all elements
118and the types of the attributes.</p>
119<h3><a name="definition1">The definition</a></h3>
120<p>The <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml">W3C XML Recommendation</a> (<a href="http://www.xml.com/axml/axml.html">Tim Bray's annotated version of
Daniel Veillard300f7d62000-11-24 13:04:04 +0000121Rev1</a>):</p>
122<ul>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000123<li><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml#elemdecls">Declaring
Daniel Veillard300f7d62000-11-24 13:04:04 +0000124 elements</a></li>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000125<li><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml#attdecls">Declaring
Daniel Veillard300f7d62000-11-24 13:04:04 +0000126 attributes</a></li>
127</ul>
Daniel Veillard300f7d62000-11-24 13:04:04 +0000128<p>(unfortunately) all this is inherited from the SGML world, the syntax is
129ancient...</p>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000130<h3><a name="Simple1">Simple rules</a></h3>
Daniel Veillard300f7d62000-11-24 13:04:04 +0000131<p>Writing DTD can be done in multiple ways, the rules to build them if you
132need something fixed or something which can evolve over time can be radically
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000133different. Really complex DTD like DocBook ones are flexible but quite harder
134to design. I will just focus on DTDs for a formats with a fixed simple
Daniel Veillard300f7d62000-11-24 13:04:04 +0000135structure. It is just a set of basic rules, and definitely not exhaustive nor
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000136usable for complex DTD design.</p>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000137<h4>
138<a name="reference1">How to reference a DTD from a document</a>:</h4>
Daniel Veillard300f7d62000-11-24 13:04:04 +0000139<p>Assuming the top element of the document is <code>spec</code> and the dtd
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000140is placed in the file <code>mydtd</code> in the subdirectory
141<code>dtds</code> of the directory from where the document were loaded:</p>
142<p><code>&lt;!DOCTYPE spec SYSTEM &quot;dtds/mydtd&quot;&gt;</code></p>
Daniel Veillard64e73902000-11-24 13:28:38 +0000143<p>Notes:</p>
Daniel Veillard300f7d62000-11-24 13:04:04 +0000144<ul>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000145<li>the system string is actually an URI-Reference (as defined in <a href="http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2396.txt">RFC 2396</a>) so you can use a
Daniel Veillard64e73902000-11-24 13:28:38 +0000146 full URL string indicating the location of your DTD on the Web, this is a
147 really good thing to do if you want others to validate your document</li>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000148<li>it is also possible to associate a <code>PUBLIC</code> identifier (a
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000149 magic string) so that the DTD is looked up in catalogs on the client side
Daniel Veillard64e73902000-11-24 13:28:38 +0000150 without having to locate it on the web</li>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000151<li>a dtd contains a set of elements and attributes declarations, but they
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000152 don't define what the root of the document should be. This is explicitly
Daniel Veillard300f7d62000-11-24 13:04:04 +0000153 told to the parser/validator as the first element of the
154 <code>DOCTYPE</code> declaration.</li>
155</ul>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000156<h4>
157<a name="Declaring2">Declaring elements</a>:</h4>
Daniel Veillard300f7d62000-11-24 13:04:04 +0000158<p>The following declares an element <code>spec</code>:</p>
Daniel Veillard300f7d62000-11-24 13:04:04 +0000159<p><code>&lt;!ELEMENT spec (front, body, back?)&gt;</code></p>
Daniel Veillard64e73902000-11-24 13:28:38 +0000160<p>it also expresses that the spec element contains one <code>front</code>,
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000161one <code>body</code> and one optional <code>back</code> children elements
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000162in this order. The declaration of one element of the structure and its
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000163content are done in a single declaration. Similarly the following declares
Daniel Veillard64e73902000-11-24 13:28:38 +0000164<code>div1</code> elements:</p>
Daniel Veillard51737272002-01-23 23:10:38 +0000165<p><code>&lt;!ELEMENT div1 (head, (p | list | note)*, div2?)&gt;</code></p>
Daniel Veillard64e73902000-11-24 13:28:38 +0000166<p>means div1 contains one <code>head</code> then a series of optional
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000167<code>p</code>, <code>list</code>s and <code>note</code>s and then an
168optional <code>div2</code>. And last but not least an element can contain
169text:</p>
Daniel Veillard300f7d62000-11-24 13:04:04 +0000170<p><code>&lt;!ELEMENT b (#PCDATA)&gt;</code></p>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000171<p>
172<code>b</code> contains text or being of mixed content (text and elements
Daniel Veillard300f7d62000-11-24 13:04:04 +0000173in no particular order):</p>
Daniel Veillard300f7d62000-11-24 13:04:04 +0000174<p><code>&lt;!ELEMENT p (#PCDATA|a|ul|b|i|em)*&gt;</code></p>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000175<p>
176<code>p </code>can contain text or <code>a</code>, <code>ul</code>,
Daniel Veillard300f7d62000-11-24 13:04:04 +0000177<code>b</code>, <code>i </code>or <code>em</code> elements in no particular
178order.</p>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000179<h4>
180<a name="Declaring1">Declaring attributes</a>:</h4>
Daniel Veillard300f7d62000-11-24 13:04:04 +0000181<p>again the attributes declaration includes their content definition:</p>
Daniel Veillard300f7d62000-11-24 13:04:04 +0000182<p><code>&lt;!ATTLIST termdef name CDATA #IMPLIED&gt;</code></p>
Daniel Veillard300f7d62000-11-24 13:04:04 +0000183<p>means that the element <code>termdef</code> can have a <code>name</code>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000184attribute containing text (<code>CDATA</code>) and which is optional
Daniel Veillard300f7d62000-11-24 13:04:04 +0000185(<code>#IMPLIED</code>). The attribute value can also be defined within a
186set:</p>
Daniel Veillard300f7d62000-11-24 13:04:04 +0000187<p><code>&lt;!ATTLIST list type (bullets|ordered|glossary)
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000188&quot;ordered&quot;&gt;</code></p>
Daniel Veillard300f7d62000-11-24 13:04:04 +0000189<p>means <code>list</code> element have a <code>type</code> attribute with 3
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000190allowed values &quot;bullets&quot;, &quot;ordered&quot; or &quot;glossary&quot; and which default to
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000191&quot;ordered&quot; if the attribute is not explicitly specified.</p>
Daniel Veillard300f7d62000-11-24 13:04:04 +0000192<p>The content type of an attribute can be text (<code>CDATA</code>),
193anchor/reference/references
194(<code>ID</code>/<code>IDREF</code>/<code>IDREFS</code>), entity(ies)
195(<code>ENTITY</code>/<code>ENTITIES</code>) or name(s)
196(<code>NMTOKEN</code>/<code>NMTOKENS</code>). The following defines that a
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000197<code>chapter</code> element can have an optional <code>id</code> attribute
198of type <code>ID</code>, usable for reference from attribute of type
199IDREF:</p>
Daniel Veillard300f7d62000-11-24 13:04:04 +0000200<p><code>&lt;!ATTLIST chapter id ID #IMPLIED&gt;</code></p>
Daniel Veillard300f7d62000-11-24 13:04:04 +0000201<p>The last value of an attribute definition can be <code>#REQUIRED
202</code>meaning that the attribute has to be given, <code>#IMPLIED</code>
203meaning that it is optional, or the default value (possibly prefixed by
204<code>#FIXED</code> if it is the only allowed).</p>
Daniel Veillard64e73902000-11-24 13:28:38 +0000205<p>Notes:</p>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000206<ul><li>usually the attributes pertaining to a given element are declared in a
Daniel Veillard64e73902000-11-24 13:28:38 +0000207 single expression, but it is just a convention adopted by a lot of DTD
208 writers:
209 <pre>&lt;!ATTLIST termdef
210 id ID #REQUIRED
211 name CDATA #IMPLIED&gt;</pre>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000212<p>The previous construct defines both <code>id</code> and
213 <code>name</code> attributes for the element <code>termdef</code>
214</p>
215</li></ul>
216<h3><a name="Some1">Some examples</a></h3>
Daniel Veillard300f7d62000-11-24 13:04:04 +0000217<p>The directory <code>test/valid/dtds/</code> in the libxml distribution
218contains some complex DTD examples. The <code>test/valid/dia.xml</code>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000219example shows an XML file where the simple DTD is directly included within
220the document.</p>
221<h3><a name="validate1">How to validate</a></h3>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000222<p>The simplest is to use the xmllint program coming with libxml. The
Daniel Veillard300f7d62000-11-24 13:04:04 +0000223<code>--valid</code> option turn on validation of the files given as input,
224for example the following validates a copy of the first revision of the XML
2251.0 specification:</p>
Daniel Veillard300f7d62000-11-24 13:04:04 +0000226<p><code>xmllint --valid --noout test/valid/REC-xml-19980210.xml</code></p>
Daniel Veillard300f7d62000-11-24 13:04:04 +0000227<p>the -- noout is used to not output the resulting tree.</p>
Daniel Veillard300f7d62000-11-24 13:04:04 +0000228<p>The <code>--dtdvalid dtd</code> allows to validate the document(s) against
229a given DTD.</p>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000230<p>Libxml exports an API to handle DTDs and validation, check the <a href="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-valid.html">associated
Daniel Veillard300f7d62000-11-24 13:04:04 +0000231description</a>.</p>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000232<h3><a name="Other1">Other resources</a></h3>
Daniel Veillard300f7d62000-11-24 13:04:04 +0000233<p>DTDs are as old as SGML. So there may be a number of examples on-line, I
234will just list one for now, others pointers welcome:</p>
Daniel Veillardb8cfbd12001-10-25 10:53:28 +0000235<ul><li><a href="http://www.xml101.com:8081/dtd/">XML-101 DTD</a></li></ul>
236<p>I suggest looking at the examples found under test/valid/dtd and any of
237the large number of books available on XML. The dia example in test/valid
238should be both simple and complete enough to allow you to build your own.</p>
239<p>
Daniel Veillard3f4c40f2002-02-13 09:19:28 +0000240<p><a href="bugs.html">Daniel Veillard</a></p>
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