A formal approach to XML semantics: implications for archive standards

Previous literature characterizing XML semantics ( Sperberg-McQueen et al. 2000 , Renear et al. 2002 , Piez 2002 ) takes reasonably syntactically and semantically plausible markup and/or schemas as a starting point. In contrast, for this paper we aim to work towards such a schema as an idealized end goal, by characterizing the necessary— if not sufficient— semantic constraints that differentiate a schema intended for archival use from nonsense and implausible schemas, as well as schemas that fail to sufficiently take semantics into account. In addition to the goal of providing a novel approach to the perenially thorny problem of XML semantics, we are particularly concerned with the interaction between the goals of archival purposes and XML semantics.