Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!umich!terminator!boston.ifs.umich.edu!jwh
From: jwh@boston.ifs.umich.edu (Jim Howe)
Newsgroups: comp.text.sgml
Subject: Re: ATA SGML definition?
Message-ID: <1990Sep11.193327.19935@terminator.cc.umich.edu>
Date: 11 Sep 90 19:33:27 GMT
References: <141829@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>> <EMV.90Sep6191207@urania.math.lsa.umich.edu> <8027@mcshh.hanse.de> <1990Sep11.163347.7593@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG>
Sender: usenet@terminator.cc.umich.edu (usenet news)
Reply-To: jwh@ifs.umich.edu
Organization: University of Michigan, IFS Project
Lines: 43

In article <1990Sep11.163347.7593@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG>,
xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes:
|> [stuff deleted]
|>
|> Please take the time to spell out acronyms, and do your best
|> to post material clear enough to be read by a wide audience,
|> not just those already familiar with the material, everyone. OK?
|> 
|> After reading the above question, I can hazard a guess the DTD might
|> be some kind of a standard, and ATA some kind of governing body (and,
|> by the way, in English, that's "conformant", not "conform", if I do
|> understand the direction of your sentence); and SMGL I know to be a
|> markup language, but it should still be spelled out in article bodies
|> at least once, even if in its very own newsgroup, and the others are
|> a mystery as presented ("DTD", "ATA"); my guesses might be quite wrong.
|> 
|> Kent, the man from xanth.
|> <xanthian@Zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <xanthian@well.sf.ca.us>


A "DTD" is a Document Type Definition.  It is used to spell out rules which
govern the markup used in a document.  SGML itself does not specify or define
any specific markup elements (such as chapter, paragraph, title, etc.)  It 
really specifies a meta-language for defining markup languages.  A DTD will 
specify (among other things) what markup "tags" are legal and where tags can
occur.  For example, a DTD may define a markup language for a "book".  It might
defined the legal "tags" as being <book>, <chapter>, <title> and <paragraph>.
It might further specify that a <paragraph> can only appear in a
<chapter> which
can only appear in a <book>.  A user "marking" up his/her document according to
the "book" DTD would only use the tags specified in the DTD.  Once the document
was marked up, the user would feed the document to an SGML parser for
validation.
The parser would use the DTD to analyze the document for violations of the DTD
rules and possibly some other work such as translating the document into
a series
of typesetting commands. 

I don't know what "ATA" stands for.
 
James W. Howe			   internet: jwh@ifs.umich.edu
University of Michigan             uucp:     uunet!mailrus!ifs.umich.edu!jwh
Ann Arbor, MI   48103-4943