Clarifying the LDML data model

[Jon Skeet]

Hi folks,

I'm trying to get my head round the LDML data model in as clear a way as
possible, and I have a few questions - basically around how to interpret
TR-35 part 1. For the moment I'm only interested in non-blocking elements
(although at some point I'm going to need to get my head round the exact
meaning of serialElements and blockingItems...)


   1. Are nondistinguishing attributes ever valid for non-end-nodes? (I can
   imagine the draft attribute being one exception to this.) It makes life
   easier if we can think of the "value" for a node as being the
   non-distinguishing attributes of just the *deepest* element in the
   chain, along with the text content of that element.
   2. Is it valid for a nondistinguishing attribute to occur on an element
   whose content is an <alias> element? If so, do the nondistinguishing
   attributes of that element override those in the target of the alias? As an
   example, consider:
     <foo>
       <element type="x" bar="bar-on-x">
         <alias source="locale" path="../element[@type='y']" />
       </element>
       <element type="y" bar="bar-on-y">
         text value
       </element>
     </foo>

   If I ask for the nondistinguishing attribute "bar" on
   //foo/element[@type='x'] would I get bar-on-x or bar-on-y?
   3. Is there any way to tell the difference between an end-node with an
   empty text value and a node which *could* have child elements, but
   happens not to for a specific locale?

As an aside, while the spec talks about a locale data file as being a *list* of
element-chain/value pairs, I'm finding it hard to shake the idea of it
being a tree (or possibly a forest). If anyone has any feedback about
whether that's likely to cause me problems later, I'd welcome it.

Jon
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