Does XML have a way to refer to duplicated data?

Suppose I create a source text that consists of rules for
generating an object text of expanded material when parsed by
a program that knows the rules. Suppose that
one of the rules is long and occurs multiple times in
the source text. I want to have only one instance of this
rule in the source text for compactness and ease of editing
it later. In this example...

..
..
..
<situationsomething </situation>
<action1action specific to something </action1>
<action2>

Charles Packer <mailbox@cpacker.orgwrote:

>Does XML have a way to refer to duplicated data?
>
>Suppose I create a source text that consists of rules for
>generating an object text of expanded material when parsed by
>a program that knows the rules. Suppose that
>one of the rules is long and occurs multiple times in
>the source text. I want to have only one instance of this
>rule in the source text for compactness and ease of editing
>it later. In this example...

Why not define all your rules in one section and assign a unique ID to
each? And later simply reference that ID at the location of the
application instead of textually copying the rule. That's how it is
usually done.
However, what on earth does this have to do with Perl modules?

jue

On Aug 28, 5:04 pm, Troy Cauble <t...@alcatel-lucent.comwrote:

You could have optional id and ref elements.
>
<action id='myUniqueId'>blah....</action>
...
<action ref='myUniqueId'/>
>
with documentation saying to use a ref attribute *OR* content.
Better than documentation is something you can validate
with DTD/XML Schema/whatever. Such as

Thanks very much for your help. Is this what you had in mind?


<actiondefs>
<action id='oftendone'>