XSL stylesheets .vs. XHTML namespace

I have a question about the precedence of stylesheet linking 
and the XHTML namespace.

What happens if an XML browser receives an text/xml MIME entity such that:

	- It is an well-formed XML document.
	- It contains a link to an XSL stylesheet.
	- It is of the XHTML namespace.
	- It satisfies all other document conformance conditions.

For example,

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="./xdirect_test.xsl"?>
<!DOCTYPE
 html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
 "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/strict" xmlns:murata="http://www.murata.com">
<head><title>test</test></head>
<body>
<p>
<murata:keyword>XSL</murata:keyword> .vs. <murata:keyword>XHTML</murata:keyword>
</p>
</body>
</html>

Should the browser ignore the XSL stylesheet and display this document 
as HTML?  Or, should it ignore the XHTML namespace and use the XSL stylesheet?
(I believe IE 5.0 does the latter. )

One could argue that the namespace URI is most important, and that the browser 
should invoke an XHTML user agent.  One could also argue that such XML 
documents merely borrow the tag library of XHTML without relying on the behavior of 
XHTML user agents, and argue that links to stylesheets should win.

Cheers,

Makoto
 
Fuji Xerox Information Systems
 
Tel: +81-44-812-7230   Fax: +81-44-812-7231
E-mail: murata.makoto@fujixerox.co.jp

Received on Wednesday, 22 September 1999 10:03:26 UTC