Extension Specification for XHTML5 entity definitions.

On 09/01/2013 16:00, Sam Ruby wrote:
>

> 3) Bugs resolved by Ian but should be reopened (for 5.1) in order to
>  get our new editor team to take a position on the matter:
> https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=13409
> https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=15213
> https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=18384
>
> Note: for the bugs in the third bucket, it should still be possible
> for the function to be included in HTML 5.0, should an extension
> spec be written and progress by made towards satisfying the exit
> criteria:



In conjunction with the Math WG I have prepared an extension document
proposing to resolve bug 13409 by adding an additional public ID to the
list of recognised XHTML PUBLIC identifiers listed in the HTML
specification.

http://www.w3.org/2003/entities/2007doc/xhtmlpubid.html

In short the situation in XHTML5 as currently specified is that:

if you use an html5 entity such as &

then you get a fatal document parse error if you specify a DTD that
defines AMP, but the document parses and AMP is defined if you specify
the XHTML 1 or MathML2 DTD (neither of which define AMP).

Conversely if you specify a MathML entity such as
⟹ It will work if you specify the XHTML 1 DTD
(which does not define this) but not work if you specify the currently
supported W3C entity set that does.

This is clearly a confusing and sub-optimal situation that leads to data
corruption if documents are moved between XHTML user agents and standard
XML tool-chains.

The Entities in MathML3 and HTML5 are derived from the definitions in
the W3C XML Entity Names Recommendation

http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-entity-names/

and this extension specification proposes adding the PUBLIC identifier
of the HTML5/MathML3 entity set to the list of identifiers recognised by
XHTML user agents.

"-//W3C//ENTITIES HTML MathML Set//EN//XML"

Note this is an "un-versioned" identifier so is a one-time bug fix
addition, the list does not need to be extended for each new version of
HTML. Adding this one line is the _sole_ change proposed by this
extension specification.


Currently the HTML 5 Extension specification document is checked in
alongside the Editor's draft of the XML Entities Recommendation, however
it could be moved to anywhere more convenient for HTML WG Procedures if
that is necessary.

I hope this meets the requirements although my understanding of parts of
the HTML WG decision procedures are still a bit fuzzy so there are
probably some technical infringements somewhere for which I apologise in
advance.

David

Received on Wednesday, 16 January 2013 14:19:41 UTC