handling metadata with multiple values

[Matthew Graham]

Hi,

Here's my tuppence worth:

So what happens when you have an application that tries to handle the data
described by these?  Consider something based on JAXB:

<ucdlist>
   <ucd> ucd1 </ucd>
   <ucd> ucd2 </ucd>
</ucdlist>

will give me a class UCDList which contains a collection of UCDs; whereas

<list>
   <ucd> foo </ucd>
   <ucd> bar </ucd>
</list>

gives me a standard List containing UCDs. The question is it is necessary
to flag the list as containing UCDs (UCDList) or is it sufficient to say I
have a list and then inquire what the list contains? Surely an alternative
might be:

<list containsOnly="ucd">
   <ucd> foo </ucd>
   <ucd> bar </ucd>
</list>

or even

<list containsOnly="ucd">
   <item> foo </item>
   <item> bar </item>
</list>

where foo and bar are UCDs by implication.

	Cheers,

	Matthew