My example was probably more akin to HTML than to XML Wes. The essence, though, was that it encapsulated the relevant item, and provided a way to construct an associated live object (as in OOP) on-the-fly when the document is loaded. The syntax to achieve that needn't look like either HTML or XML. I merely used the '<...>' format since there was an obvious precedent. RTF and *.doc Word documents are also types of rich-text mark-up languages but don't use '<...>'. You could even argue that *.doc documents allow MS Word to construct objects on the fly. However, those objects, and both data formats, are concerned only with rendition and layout rather than semantic content. Tony Proctor "Wes Groleau" <groleau+news@freeshell.org> wrote in message news:kKI8j.3439$c82.1373@trnddc01... > Tony Proctor wrote: > > >> Wes Groleau <groleau+news@freeshell.org> wrote in > > >>> Tony Proctor wrote: > >>>> As a contrived illustration, consider some free-form notes that > >>>> wanted to reference a person's name, address during a particular > >>>> year, and the date they moved there: > >>>> > >>>> <Person("Anthony Proctor")> lives in <Person("Tony > >>>> Proctor").Address("2007-10-01").Country> and moved there in > >>>> <Event("ProctorMove").Year> > >>>> > >>> I and many others have thought about ways to tag words and phrases > >>> in free-form text with XML tags and attributes to carry the linking > >>> information. But as far as I know, none of us have ever actually > >>> produced a working implementation. > > > > Interestingly Wes, the snippet of my post that you quote here has nothing to > > do with XML. Although I did mention XML somewhere, it was to point out the > > You offered an example of tagging parts of text in an "XML-like" style, > so I thought I'd mention that others had had similar idea--similar > to that _part_ of your ideas. > > > inappropriateness of it since it's designed for hierarchical data, and > > family relationships are not hierarchical - they're a "network". > > XML and HTML are hierarchical in structure, as is GEDCOM. > BUT all three do have cross-referencing mechanisms. > > -- > Wes Groleau > ---- > The man who reads nothing at all is better educated > than the man who reads nothing but newspapers. > -- Thomas Jefferson