Wes Groleau <groleau+news@freeshell.org> wrote: > Again, how is XML more flexible than GEDCOM? The flexibility, if any, > has to be built into the semantics--the DTD and what is allowed to > link to what. I may complain about areas where GEDCOM is a bit rigid, > but overall, it's MORE flexible than many software implementations. > > > Again, if you can't force them to comply with the GEDCOM 5.5 spec, you > can't force them to comply with the GEDCOM 6 DTD or any other DTD, > much less the semantic parts that a DTD cannot express. > Again, XML-compliant means that the software would accept the file as input. By doing that it SHOULD at least accept the information in the file that describes the data type and the generator's format context, both in reference to the data format itself (dd-mm-yyyy-gregorian calendar, etc) as well as the generator's heirarchy. Both are part of the DTD. Nobody HAS to do anything, but for those that WANT to do the right thing then all of that would be "transparant", viewable in the DTD/Schema. If each piece of software was now able to produce XML-compliant output of the data that it currently outputs in "GEDCOM format", a look at it's DTD/Schema would reveal where it varied from the "baseline" LDS spec. How can you say that is "less flexible" than "GEDCOM"??