Re: Why profile="" allows only one URI.... NOT

On 2/15/06 12:48 AM, "Sierk Bornemann" <sierkb@gmx.de> wrote:

> 
> Hi Björn,
> hi Tantek!
> 
> Am/Um 02:24 15.02.2006 schrieb Bjoern Hoehrmann:
>> Hi Tantek,
>> 
>>   You remember our discussion around HTML Tidy's lack of support for
>> multiple URIs in the HTML profile="" attribute. I'm happy to tell you
>> the HTML Working Group resolved the problem in the XHTML M12N 1.1 PR
>> by further prohibiting multiple URIs; the rationale they provide is
>> 
>>   "The datatype for the profile was indeed changed to URI in M12N on
>>   purpose, specifically so that it would be possible to use it as a
>>   possible means to identify compound document profiles in the future."
>> 
>>     -- 
>> http://hades.mn.aptest.com/cgi-bin/voyager-issues/Modularization-abstractions
>> ?id=8168

Thanks for pointing this out.  Wow this is ironic.

Just as web authors/publishers are finding a good use of multiple profiles
in HTML4/XHTML1, the HTML WG is specifically forbidding the method being
used thus going out of their way to break backwards compatibility.  This
sounds too incredulous to be true.

If XHTML M12N 1.1 truly breaks this (multiple profiles) I'll have to
recommend avoiding it.


>> since it never allowed multiple ones,

False.

The prose in HTML4 clearly states:

"This attribute specifies the location of one or more meta data profiles,
separated by white space. For future extensions, user agents should consider
the value to be a list..."

"one or more"

"profiles" (plural, not singular)

"list"

It has *ALWAYS* allowed multiple ones.  Prose trumps DTDs as well, as DTDs
*cannot* specify all the details of the language, some details must be
specified in prose, and thus prose overrides DTDs if the two contradict.


> I remember the personal mail exchange between you, Tantek an me, which
> happened over a year ago or so

None of this has changed in a year.  This is all in regards to specs many
years old.

And thankfully, as Ian Hickson has pointed out, HTML5 has properly clarified
the multiple profiles feature of HTML4.

Thanks,

Tantek

Received on Monday, 20 February 2006 07:11:48 UTC