1.1 WD suggestions on extension attributes/properties

Hello Editors,

A question just came in on the FOP-User mailing list that appears to 
raise two issues in the 1.1 WD (text also in 1.0) regarding the wording 
in "2.2 XSL Namespace" section[1]:

1.)  Quote: "An element from the XSL namespace may have any attribute 
not from the XSL namespace, provided that the expanded-name of the 
attribute has a non-null namespace URI. The --->presence of such 
attributes must not change the behavior of XSL elements<--- and 
functions defined in this document.":

The arrowed portion above indicates that implementors may not create 
extension properties that provide any change to the functionality and/or 
appearance of the XSL formatting objects (that would otherwise be 
ignored by another implementation that doesn't understand the extension 
property).  If I am reading this correctly, extension properties may 
then only have semantic value for extension (i.e., non-XSL) formatting 
objects.

But I'm unsure of the benefit of that rule.  There doesn't appear to be 
  much value in allowing an extension attribute to be attached to XSL 
FO's if they may not alter the processing of that FO's.  Also, it is the 
various implementators' work on extension attributes on already defined 
XSL FO's that help these extensions to be incorporated as official XSL 
properties in a future release of the recommendation.  Further, these 
extension attributes could still be ignored with no effect on the 
standard FO functionality for another implementation that would not 
understand the extension attribute.

I guess my recommendation would be to remove the sentence containing the 
arrows above.

2.)  Quote:  "It is an error for an element from the XSL namespace to 
have attributes with expanded-names that have null namespace URIs (i.e., 
attributes with unprefixed names) other than attributes -->defined for 
the element<-- in this document."

The arrowed portion appears to contradict the rule that "Every 
formatting property may be specified on every formatting object." ([2], 
first sentence of chapter 5.)  For example, I can place "starting-state" 
(null namespace URI) on fo:block, even though this property is not 
"defined for the element in this document."

If I'm correct here, my recommendation would be to remove "for the 
element" at the very end of the quote above.

Thanks,
Glen

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/xsl11/#xsl-namespace
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/xsl11/#refinement

Received on Friday, 14 October 2005 06:15:54 UTC