Re: A proposed solution

"Simon St.Laurent" wrote:

> At 10:42 AM 6/15/00 -0400, Paul W. Abrahams wrote:
> >James Clark wrote:
> >> In the case of external entities, the only thing that an XML processor
> >> needs to do with the system identifier is to fetch the resource it
> >> identifies.  It doesn't have to compare it for equality with other
> >> system identifiers.  In the case of namespace names, the namespace
> >> processor doesn't have to fetch the resource it identifies, but it has
> >> to compare it with other namespace names with possible different
> >> contexts, in order to determine whether attributes are unique (in
> >> accordance with section 5.3 of the namespaces Rec).
> >
> >Explanations like that go far towards cutting through the fog.  Thanks.
>
> Er... I'm still in the fog.  Does this mean that the base URI for the
> contents of external entities (including namespace values, should you care
> to absolutize) is that of the surrounding document, and not that of the
> entity itself?

Different fogbank, I think.  What James seems to be saying is that XML
processors need to fetch the identified resource, while namespace processors
need to compare the identifiers -- a different operation.  Your (very
reasonable) question pertains to how the comparison operation is to be
performed, but not to whether it's the same operation as retrieval.   If we
affirm the literal interpretation of namespace names, then the namespace spec
doesn't need to worry about base URI issues.

Paul Abrahams

Received on Thursday, 15 June 2000 11:53:11 UTC