[tei-council] datatype issues (part 1)

[Sebastian Rahtz]

Lou Burnard wrote:

> 1. <specDesc ident="tei.data.xxxx"/> will extract the <desc> from the
> referenced macroSpec. It would be nice also to be able to extract the
> <content> or <stringVal> part for display.

a detail.

>
> 2. The definition of <macroSpec> allows it to contain multiple
> <content> or <stringVal> children. Why?
>
an oversight? hard to conceive of a reason...

> 3. tei.data.certainty is defined as either an enumeration ("high",
> "low", "medium", "unknown")  or a reference to tei.data.probability,
> which is a real value between 0,1 or an integer between 0,100. I
> wonder if it wouldn't be less confusing to restrict the values for
> tei.data.certainty to the literal only, since any attribute for which
> we to allow either kind of value can do so by giving an alternation of
> datatypes (I think)

absolutely.  much clearer

>
> 4. tei.datatype.language is isomorphic with xsd:language: do we need it?

that applies to other cases, surely? for elegance, yes.

>
> 5. tei.data.regexp is used only  in two rather obscure places: do we
> need it? If we do, is the reference to appx. F of the xsd spec really
> the canonical place to define what sort of regexp we mean ?

pass. but sounds dumpable.

>
> 6. tei.data.sex defines four alphabetic values (m f x u) which
> correspond to ISO 5218 numeric codes 1 2 0 and 9. Should we not rather
> use the ISO codes?

it would be consistent of me to say "yes", so I will say "yes".  tho
pragmatically its a pain

>
> 7. Furthermore, where (as with sex) the datatype is a closed
> enumeration, it makes sense to represent this in the macrospec as a
> <rng:choice> containing several <rng:value>s. But there is currently
> no scope to  provide a gloss for what each value means, since
> <valList> is not allowed within <macrospec>.

allow valList within <macroSpec>, then.  important that it be glossable
- especially for that sex example!

>
> That's something to be going on with. I'm going to have a cup of tea
> AND A BISCUIT now.
>
i can smell the baked potatoes.

-- 
Sebastian Rahtz      
Information Manager, Oxford University Computing Services
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