Re: Summary of Issue 194 - encodingStyle

Martin Gudgin wrote:

>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Ray Whitmer" <rayw@netscape.com>
>To: <xml-dist-app@w3.org>
>Sent: Tuesday, April 23, 2002 6:47 PM
>Subject: Re: Summary of Issue 194 - encodingStyle
>
>
><SNIP/>
>
>>Actually, some places you need to know a namespace binding are clear,
>>and others are not.  I am not sure that it is ever clear that you need
>>xml:base.  Especially not at the raw infoset level.
>>
>
>Actually the infoset carries a base URI property for Document, Element and
>Processing Instruction Information Items. So xml:base would modify the
>infoset.
>
>Gudge
>
><SNIP/>
>
Yes, obviously it does modify the infoset, and I didn't claim otherwise. 
 encodingStyle also modifies the infoset.  You could also trivially 
produce an expanded infoset with an encodingStyle value on every node, 
as is done with xml:base.  But it still says nothing about what effect, 
if any, setting xml:base has on the interpretation of particular values 
or nodes, just like encodingStyle may affect the interpretation of 
values but there is no obvious interpretation of where it applies and 
where it does not.  The application probably decides that ultimately for 
both.  xml:base does not automatically apply, modifying the infoset, 
just because there happen to be URIs in content.  The same content may 
be interpreted in different ways by different applications.

This is the same with namespaces.  You do not really know which content 
happens to have qnames in it that will rely on the declaration for 
interpretation.  For this reason, it does not directly affect the 
infoset of such since that can only be determined by applying a schema 
or other processing, as with the use of an encoding.

Ray Whitmer
rayw@netscape.com