Input to BP1 http://www.w3.org/International/its/techniques/its-techniques.html#Dev Lang

Hi all,

I have a comment on the note of "Best Practice 1: Provide xml:lang to
specify natural language content", which says:

"Note: Make sure that the definition of the xml:lang attribute allows for
empty values. That is, you must not use e.g. NMTOKEN as the data type."

I checked out the language data type of XML Schema, and it allows not for
empty values (see my other mail). Since the XML Schema data type library
is the most common one also for RELAX NG, I think we need to make people
aware of this problem:
1) Go to the XML Schema WG and ask them to change the definition of tje
"language" data type
2) Since such a change will take time (maybe in XML Schema 1.1.?), we
should add a health warning to the note above. Proposal:

"Note: Make sure that the definition of the xml:lang attribute allows for
empty values. That is, you must not use e.g. NMTOKEN as the data type. The
XML Schema built in data type 'language' does not allow for empty values.
Hence it must be used with care or avoid.'

Felix

Received on Thursday, 31 May 2007 13:22:14 UTC