XPath 1.0 & 2.0 vs default namespace bindings

Sorry to flog this dead horse, but Namespaces in XML says, in its errata,

  The prefix xmlns is used only to declare namespace bindings and is by 
  definition bound to the namespace name http://www.w3.org/2000/xmlns/.

1. Should XPath 1.0 implementations expose this binding as a namespace node?

2. Should XPath 2.0 implementations that choose to expose the namespace axis
do likewise? I assume the answer is "no" because XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Data
Model (current WD) says, in section 4.3.1,

  No namespace node may have the name "xmlns". 

It's not clear to me whether the intent really is to ignore that binding.
Or the 'xml' prefix binding, for that matter. Is there or is there not a 
namespace node for the 'xml' prefix, and for the 'xmlns' prefix?

3. The new XPath specs might also want to reflect and/or reiterate the fact
that Namespaces in XML says that the bindings of

  prefix 'xml' to 'http://www.w3.org/XML/1998/namespace'
  and
  prefix 'xmlns' to 'http://www.w3.org/2000/xmlns/'

are unchangeable; one cannot bind those URIs to other prefixes, or those 
prefixes to other URIs.

Mike

-- 
  Mike J. Brown   |  http://skew.org/~mike/resume/
  Denver, CO, USA |  http://skew.org/xml/

Received on Tuesday, 21 January 2003 19:25:11 UTC