Re: XML DTDs

[Duane Morin <dmorin@tiac.net>]

> I've been rummaging around the IMS Project website, trying to understand
> their work.  (I think I'm making some progress in that.)  I noticed that
> there have been 5 or 6 attempts at DTDs for test and quiz data. 

I don't know how useful this is for folks, since I don't know what language you
want to work in - but over at www.alphaworks.ibm.com there are several free
java libraries for XML manipulation.  In particular, there is an XML parser,
BeanMaker, and EditorMaker.  In English, this means that if you can compile
and run Java code, then you have a free XML editor to play with.  You can 
write a DTD, make a quick editor for it to try out the format, and repeat
the process iteratively in order to develop a DTD you like.

Note that the editor that gets generated isn't any sort of professional thing
that you'd hand off to somebody as a finished product.  But it does give you
a way of entering in some data form-style, rather than typing directly into
an XML flat file.

Duane