Re: 1343 messages later

James Clark wrote:

> David Carlisle wrote:
> >
> > > Reading this again, I'm realizing the genius of Microsoft's proposal, which
> > > lets Tim and I both feel right,
> >
> > Isn't that just because it is so vague it can mean anything to anyone,
>
> That's my feeling too at the moment.  As far as I can tell, all it does
> is point out that some cases are easy, but it doesn't help with the hard
> cases.  In comparing two namespace names, we can distinguish four cases:

 . . . . . . .

> 4. both names are relative but the namespace declarations have different
> base URIs; here the literal and absolute approaches give completely
> different answers; this is the really controversial case because the
> literal approach here can treat as equal two namespace names that refer
> to different resources (which is anathema to the absolutizers)
>
> A proposal that doesn't say clearly what happens in case 4 doesn't get
> us anywhere. It has to be answered by the namespaces Rec, because it can
> arise within a single XML document when there are external entities.
>
> Possible answers for case 4 include:
>
> A.  They are considered equal if they are character-for-character
> identical after absolutization (the absolute approach)
>
> B.  They are considered equal if the namespace names are
> character-for-character identical regardless of the base URI (the
> literal approach)
>
> C.  They are considered not to be equal in this case
>
> What is it?

Your question is a special case of my more general problem with the proposal:
unlike the text it replaces, it never explicitly says what it means for two URI
references which identify namespaces to be identical.  The existing text starts
with "URI references which identify namespaces are considered identical when ...
".  It's OK to tinker with this definition, but unless that introductory phrase
remains, the uniqueness of attributes test is not clearly defined.

Paul Abrahams

Received on Thursday, 15 June 2000 10:48:40 UTC