[microformats-discuss] XHTML tables as CSV-like "records"?

[Brian Suda]

In Tantek's talks he mentions XHTML Compounds. This does not exactly
provide itself for one of those, but the talk also discusses some of
the lesser know attributes already build into tables, such as AXIS,
HEADER, COLGROUP, ROWGROUP, ID, etc[1]. Even some of the regular
elements, TBODY, TH, etc. These already have some semantic meaning, so
a new microformat might not be needed for this application? it all
depends exactly what you want to do with it? you could simple write an
XMDP using pre-exisiting attributes instead of trying to overload the
CLASS attribute when there is something semantically better.

[1] - http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/tables.html

On 10/2/05, Dr. Ernie Prabhakar <drernie at opendarwin.org> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I'm trying to find out if there is a standard microformat for
> interpreting tables as a list of records, e.g.:
>
> <table class="records">
> <tr>
>    <th scope="col"><b>XML Schema Datatype</b></th>
>    <th scope="col"><b>Mac OS X tag</b></th>
>    <th scope="col"><b>XHTML class/tag</b></th>
> </tr><tr>
>    <td>xs:string</td>
>    <td><code>&lt;string></code></td>
>    <td><em>implicit</em></td>
> </tr><tr>
>    <td>xs:integer</td>
>    <td><code>&lt;integer></code></td>
>    <td><code>&lt;div class="integer">&lt;/div></code></td>
> </table>
>
> The idea is that tables tagged as "records" are expected to:
>         a) Have a header row
>         b) Indicate proper scope
>         c) Contain the same number of elements in each row
>
> In other words, act like a CSV file.  I've heard Tantek describe
> XHTML tables this way, but haven't seen an actual microformat (or
> even design pattern) characterizing the 'right' way to do that.  This
> seems worthy of its own pattern -- like XOXO for lists -- doesn't it?
>
> Anyway, if there is no such thing, and people agree it is worthwhile,
> I'll start collecting examples and such as recommended in the usual
> process.  I just wanted to check first, to make sure I wasn't missing
> anything.
>
> Thanks,
> - Ernie P.
>
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>


--
brian suda
http://suda.co.uk