xmlns in HTML5 (was: Telecon Agenda- Thursday 1500 UTC)

Ben Adida wrote:
> 2) Mark's @token Proposal and potential concerns
> I think we agree on the goal, but there are many different viewpoints on
> the mechanism.

I think we will inevitably hit upon the xmlns: discussion for non-XML
languages, namely HTML5. After doing some digging, I was unable to find
a place in the HTML5 spec that says that xmlns:-based namespace
declarations cannot be used in HTML5 (vs. XHTML5).

The validator at validator.nu certainly kicks up an error, but I can't
find the spec text that specifies that xmlns is not allowed in an HTML5
document.

Hopefully, Henri or Ian can point out where this is stated in the HTML5
spec. Specifically:

1. Where is the text that states that xmlns:-based namespace
declarations aren't allowed in HTML5 documents? (other than by not
saying anything about xmlns:FOO style namespace declarations or not
specifying xmlns: as a valid global attribute in HTML5).

2. Is it true that xmlns and xmlns:XYZ namespace declarations are
allowed in XHTML5? My reading of the HTML5 spec is that they are allowed.

3. What triggers the html5lib parser into XHTML5 mode? Is it only the
server document Content-Type set to "application/xml" or
"application/xhtml+xml"? Would this <meta http-equiv="Content-Type"
content="application/xml"> trigger the html5lib parser into XHTML5 mode?
The section on Encoding Declaration State[1] seems to indicate that
"text/html" is the only valid value for "http-equiv"?

4. If xmlns:-based namespace declarations are not allowed in HTML5, are
they still accessible via the HTML5 DOM? Does the HTML5 DOM filter out
"invalid" attributes? There is no text that I could find that specifies
what is and isn't included in the HTML5 DOM.

-- manu

[1]http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/Overview.html#attr-meta-http-equiv-content-type

-- 
Manu Sporny (skype: msporny, twitter: manusporny)
President/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
blog: Bitmunk 3.1 Released - Browser-based P2P Commerce
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Received on Thursday, 16 July 2009 04:40:43 UTC