RE: Use cases

> From: xml-uri-request@w3.org [mailto:xml-uri-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of
> David G. Durand
> Sent: Wednesday, May 17, 2000 6:48 PM
> To: xml-uri@w3.org
> Subject: Re: Use cases
>
> ...
> Except that this is not exactly the situation, as I have heard it
> explained by other Microsoft representatives. The _meaning_ of
> relative URLs as  used by Microsoft software is based on absolutizing
> the relative URL with respect to the document base and using it to
> retrieve a resource. The comparison semantics defined by the
> namespaces spec. are in fact ignored by this software. The namespaces
> specification defines the matching of namespace URIs for identity,
> and does not mandate or endorse any resolution strategy.
>
> The result is that the Microsoft documents in question depend on
> resolution and retrieval of data from the namespace URI, rather than
> comparison according to the specification -- this means that two
> distinct namespaces according to the URI specification, e.g.
> "foo/../blort/example" and "blort/example" would be treated as
> identical by MS software. Given two documents with namespace
> references like "blort/example" however, one could not tell if the
> assocuiated tags shared semantics _without_ dependable notion of the
> base URI with respect to which those namespace URIs should be
> resolved.
>
> ...

I am using MSXML(3) a lot, and yet haven't seen a behaviour like this. When
doing it's job as XML processor, MSXML treats namespace declarations as
defined in the REC (otherwise please correct me!). When doing it's job as
IE5-XSL or XSLT engine, MSXML does literal comparisons of the namespace
names.

So if we are not talking of MSXML as such -- what else is to consider?
Applications built on top of XML processors are free to treat URIs in
namespaces any way they want. If an hypothetical MS application treats two
namespaces as identical, because their URIs, which are not identical
strings, actually DO point to the same URI -- where's the issue? This is
explicitly allowed in the namespace recommendation.

Could please someone who *REALLY* knows which "existing documents" are
affected give an example?

Received on Thursday, 18 May 2000 04:47:12 UTC