Re: Fixes for editorial issues

On Nov 21, 2005, at 10:57 AM, Julian Reschke wrote:
>
>> - Bug 168 I applied the symbolic references changes, but I may make 
>> further changes in the future. Sometimes it's not very helpful to the 
>> reader just to have an RFC number and not a spec name or even acronym 
>> -- but we can have both. And perhaps you can suggest how to fix this 
>> ugly one:
>> The XML namespace extension [W3C.REC-xml-names-19990114] is also used
>> in this specification in order to allow for new XML elements to be
>> added without fear of colliding with other element names.
>
> Just like for XML. In-line the reference and choose a good anchor 
> name, preferably the same as in RFC2518.

Ah, I see.  What a pain to have to have the whole reference inline -- I 
like having references in some external place, safe from my typos.  
Both ugly choices, sadly.

>
>> - Bug 174 is not strictly editorial, it actually changes the meaning 
>> of a requirement. Here's your suggested text:
>> When the property value contains
>> further XML elements, namespace declarations that are in scope for 
>> that part of
>> the XML document apply within the property value as well, and MUST
>> be preserved in server storage for retransmission later.
>
> I would have classified it as editorial. Could you please explain why 
> you changed it in the first place? Anyway, I think that "namespace 
> declarations" are to be preserved.

If we state that namespace declarations must be preserved, doesn't that 
mean that the server must return the property value with the same 
namespace declarations it was originally sent with, on the same 
element, and even including the prefix?  Because the namespace 
declaration includes the prefix, as I understand.

>
>> In the context of the whole sentence, your change would state that 
>> the namespace *declarations*... MUST be preserved in server storage. 
>> Previously the sentence only stated that the namespace must be 
>> preserved in server storage. Perhaps we can find another phrasing 
>> entirely.
>
> Could you please explain what "preserving the namespace name" actually 
> means?
>

Presumably if we require the server to store the namespace (the text no 
longer says to store the namespace name), then that means that the 
server can remember that the element "foo" was declared in namespace 
"bar" without having to remember what element namespace "bar" was 
declared on or what prefix was used in the declaration.  But like I 
said, perhaps we can come up with better wording overall, perhaps even 
simpler.

Here's a stab at it: "When a property value contains XML elements with 
qualified names, servers retransmitting the property value MUST include 
namespaces and equivalently scoped element names. "

I'm really struggling with a way to state this -- I'm not happy at all 
with "equivalently scoped element names" but I don't think we want to 
require that the server use the exact same qualified names (that would 
also imply preserving the prefix).

Here's another stab:  "When a property value contains XML elements with 
namespaces either declared or in scope, and that property value is 
retransmitted later by the server, the property value MUST continue to 
apply the same namespaces to all elements, even if the declarations 
have changed."

Soliciting other suggestions here,
Lisa

Received on Monday, 21 November 2005 19:27:10 UTC