A formal approach to XML semantics: implications for archive standards
Dombrowski, Andrew, and Quinn Dombrowski. "A formal approach to XML semantics: implications for archive standards." Presented at International Symposium on XML for the Long Haul: Issues in the Long-term Preservation of XML, Montréal, Canada, August 2, 2010. In Proceedings of the International Symposium on XML for the Long Haul: Issues in the Long-term Preservation of XML. Balisage Series on Markup Technologies, vol. 6 (2010). doi:10.4242/BalisageVol6.Dombrowski01.
Abstract
Previous literature characterizing XML semantics (Sperberg-McQueen et al. 2000, Renear et al. 2002, Piez 2002) takes reasonably syntactically and semantically plausible markup and/or schemas as a starting point. In contrast, for this paper we aim to work towards such a schema as an idealized end goal, by characterizing the necessary— if not sufficient— semantic constraints that differentiate a schema intended for archival use from nonsense and implausible schemas, as well as schemas that fail to sufficiently take semantics into account. In addition to the goal of providing a novel approach to the perennially thorny problem of XML semantics, we are particularly concerned with the interaction between the goals of archival purposes and XML semantics.
