Re: General concern about inter-grammar references

[Kohsuke KAWAGUCHI <kohsuke.kawaguchi@eng.sun.com>]

The <withGrammar> pattern allows implementation to skip re-reading, but
it doesn't expand the capability of reference mechanism conceptually.

Even if we adopt the <withGrammar> pattern, we are still tied in the
tree structure. Finding G5=G5' becomes easier for schema processors, but
nothing more.

parent <--           --> child

G1 -+- G2 --- G4
    |
    +- G3 -+- G5
           |
           +- G5'


It would be nice if we can have the capability of:

- G2 extends G5 (combine something to the patterns defined in G5),
- G3 extends G5, and
- both G2 and G3 can refer to G5 and they can see the extensions made by
  both.

In the diagram, it would look like

G2 -+
    +-> G5(+ext1+ext2)
G3 -+

?


your provide/require mechanism would probably work very well. But as you
wrote, this might fell short of the 80/20 line...


regards,
--
Kohsuke KAWAGUCHI                          +1 650 786 0721
Sun Microsystems                   kohsuke.kawaguchi@sun.com