Re: [Serial] XHTML Serialization (qt-2004Nov0025-02)

Hi Bjoern

In [1], you submitted the following comment on the October 29 Working 
Draft of XSLT 2.0 and XQuery 1.0 Serialization:

[...]
  Given an empty instance of an XHTML element whose content model is not 
EMPTY (for example, an empty title or paragraph) the serializer MUST NOT 
use the minimized form.
[...]

It is not clear to me how it is determined whether an element has such a 
content model, please specify clearly how this is determined and whether 
implementations should/may/etc. apply these rules to elements for which 
the algorithm to determine the content model defines no result, e.g. the 
algorithm is unlikely to define the rules for the "wbr" element which is a 
proprietary element with a content model of EMPTY.

Thank you for submitting this comment.  The XSL and XML Query Working 
Groups discussed the comment and have agreed that the text should be 
modified.  We converged on agreement that the point of the rules about 
minimized syntax is to maximize interoperability with legacy HTML 
browsers. This goal can be achieved without addressing issues of which DTD 
or schema is being used, by simply listing the elements br, hr, and so on. 
 The new text is:

[...]
[Definition: The following elements have an EMPTY content model: area, 
base, br, col, hr, img, input, link, meta, basefont, frame, isindex, and 
param.] Given an empty instance of an XHTML element whose content model is 
not EMPTY (for example, an empty title or paragraph) the serializer MUST 
NOT use the minimized form.
[...]

May I ask you to confirm that this response is acceptable to you?

Thanks,

Joanne
 [On behalf of the XSL and XML Query Working Groups] 

[1] 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-qt-comments/2004Nov/0025.html

>From: Bjoern Hoehrmann <derhoermi@gmx.net> 
>To: public-qt-comments@w3.org 
>Date: Mon, 08 Nov 2004 01:10:47 +0100
>
>Dear XSL Working Group,
>Dear XML Query Working Group,
>
>  These are my comments on section 6 of the current XSLT 2.0 and 
>XQuery
>1.0 Serialization Working Draft:
>
>[...]
>  Equally, it is entirely under the control of the person or process
>  that creates the instance of the data model whether the output
>  conforms to XHTML Strict, XHTML Transitional, XHTML Frameset, or
>  XHTML Basic.
>[...]
>
>Please change the enumeration of document types to something more
>general, there is no "XHTML Strict" document type (it would be 
>"XHTML
>1.0 Strict") and some document types such as XHTML 1.1 are missing.
>
>[...]
>  Given an empty instance of an XHTML element whose content model is 
>not
>  EMPTY (for example, an empty title or paragraph) the serializer 
>MUST
>  NOT use the minimized form.
>[...]
>
>It is not clear to me how it is determined whether an element has 
>such a
>content model, please specify clearly how this is determined and 
>whether
>implementations should/may/etc. apply these rules to elements for 
>which
>the algorithm to determine the content model defines no result, e.g. 
>the
>algorithm is unlikely to define the rules for the "wbr" element 
>which is
>a proprietary element with a content model of EMPTY.
>
>[...]
>  The serializer SHOULD output namespace declarations in a way that 
>is
>  consistent with the requirements of the XHTML DTD if this is 
>possible.
>  The DTD requires the declaration 
>xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
>  to appear on the html element, and only on the html element.
>[...]
>
>This is only true for XHTML 1.0 document types, XHTML 1.1 for 
>example
>allows xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" on all elements.
>
>It is not clear to me whether the note following the item above is a
>clarification of the requirement or an additional suggestion. If it 
>is
>an additional suggestion, please change the document so that
>implementations SHOULD implement what the note describes, if it is a
>clarification, please make this more obvious in the document.
>
>[...]
>  If the instance of the data model includes a head element in the 
>XHTML
>  namespace, and the include-content-type parameter has the value 
>yes,
>  the xhtml output method MUST add a meta element immediately after 
>the
>  start-tag of the head element specifying the character encoding
>  actually used.
>[...]
>
>It is not clear what "immediately after" means here, I would expect 
>that
>the meta element is the first child of the head element, but in the
>example it is the second node (preceded by a whitespace text node).
>
>The example is non-conforming as it lacks the trailing space before 
>/>,
>please change the example to conform to the specification.
>
>[...]
>  The content type SHOULD be set to the value given for the 
>media-type
>  parameter; the default value for XHTML is text/html. The value
>  application/xhtml+xml, registered in [RFC3236], MAY also be used.
>[...]
>
>It is not clear to me what you mean here, there are only two 
>behaviors
>that make sense to me, either
>
>  * the value is always text/html
>  * the value is always the value given
>    for media-type defaulting to text/html
>
>It is never acceptable to use application/xhtml+xml unless 
>explicitly
>requested (among other things, some user agents fail to recognize 
>the
>charset parameter if the type is not text/html), please change the 
>text
>to state that the value must be set to the value given for the
>media-type or text/html if no media-type is specified.
>
>[...]
>  If the instance of the data model includes a head element that has 
>a
>  meta element child, the serializer SHOULD replace any content
>  attribute of the meta element, or add such an attribute, with the
>  value as described above, rather than output a new meta element.
>[...]
>
>Please change this text to limit the behavior to meta elements with
>http-equiv="Content-Type" (where the value of the attribute is case-
>insensitive).
>
>Please add a note that this process removes possible parameters in 
>the
>attribute value, i.e. that
>
>  <meta http-equiv="Content-Type"
>        content="text/html;version='3.0'" />
>
>in the data model instance would be replaced by e.g.
>
>  <meta http-equiv="Content-Type"
>        content="text/html;charset=utf-8" />
>
>Please add a note that this serialization is insufficient to meet 
>all
>the requirements to deliver XHTML documents to legacy user agents, 
>for
>example, if the instance of the data model includes
>
>  <p xml:lang="en">...</p>
>
>the serializer does not serialize it to
>
>  <p xml:lang="en" lang="en">...</p>
>
>which would however be necessary to make this information available 
>to
>user agents that only look at the lang attribute.
>
>regards.
>