Re: C.4 Undeclared entities?

>>>If the entity is an SGML text entity, the declaration *must* be in
>>>the document or else different systems will produce a different ESIS
>>>from the same document. 
>>
>>I'd appreciate some more detailed explanation of the reasons
>>for the ESIS differences, if you wouldn't mind.
>
>SGML text entities are parsed in the same context as the document that
>references them and the parsed replacement text becomes part of the ESIS. Within
>the ESIS, there is no indication that they existed as separate entities. 
>
>If the declaration is not in the document, there is no way to identify the
>entity, and therefore no way to assure that two different systems will use the
>same replacement text. If they don't, there will be two different ESISs.

OK. This is what I thought you meant. In the general case, this is
certainly true. However, I think that as XML will have purely
synchronous entities (or so it seems), that lazy parsing is perfectly
possible, even if the entity has never been declared (though CDATA etc.
would create problems I guess).

Received on Friday, 25 October 1996 21:53:08 UTC