Re: SVG12: glyph language matching vs xml:lang

On Tuesday, April 25, 2006, 3:08:08 PM, Anne wrote:

AvK> On Tue, 25 Apr 2006 15:03:13 +0200, Chris Lilley <chris@w3.org> wrote:
>> You can, probably the DTD is not able to check this because the DTD  
>> language is not powerful enough, but the XHTML spec warns against doing  
>> so and its contrary to the XML specification.

AvK> Does the XML specification forbid XML based languages to invent their own
AvK> language tagging mechanism?

It says:

  In document processing, it is often useful to identify the natural or
  formal language in which the content is written. A special attribute
  named xml:lang MAY be inserted in documents to specify the language
  used in the contents and attribute values of any element in an XML
  document.[...]

  The intent declared with xml:lang is considered to apply to all
  attributes and content of the element where it is specified, unless
  overridden with an instance of xml:lang on another element within that
  content. In particular, the empty value of xml:lang is used on an
  element B to override a specification of xml:lang on an enclosing
  element A, without specifying another language. Within B, it is
  considered that there is no language information available, just as if
  xml:lang had not been specified on B or any of its ancestors.

  Note:

  Language information may also be provided by external transport
  protocols (e.g. HTTP or MIME). When available, this information may be
  used by XML applications, but the more local information provided by
  xml:lang should be considered to override it.

So, it allows other methods,such as out of band information from the
protocol, but xml:lang overrides this if present o the tree or on a
subtree.


The lang attribute in HTML was grandfathered into XHTML, but XHTML makes
it clear that xml:lang should be used, that lang may alsobe used,and
that xml:lang takes precedence.

>> AvK> ... using the lang DOM attribute on any XHTML element would also  
>> result in
>> AvK> "lang" being set if I remember correctly, but that's less relevant.

>> Actually no, that one is more relevant. Do you have a specific spec  
>> pointer handy?

AvK>   
AvK> http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/REC-DOM-Level-2-HTML-20030109/html.html#ID-59132807

Thanks. So, this is an HTML-specific method on the HTMLElement interface
from DOM Level 2 - is there an equivalent method for XML?




-- 
 Chris Lilley                    mailto:chris@w3.org
 Interaction Domain Leader
 Chair, W3C SVG Working Group
 W3C Graphics Activity Lead
 Co-Chair, W3C Hypertext CG

Received on Tuesday, 25 April 2006 14:25:20 UTC