Re: XML Validity and DTD dependance

> Well, I really meant all of validity.  If you remove DTD's then some of
> the validity constraints become not relevant, but you don't have to remove
> them since there's never any way to not meet them.

Just to be quite clear here: *all* the validity constraints depend on
DTDs.  In the absence of a DTD, there's no point reporting any
validity errors except the absence of the DTD itself.

> Look at
>     http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-xml-core-wg/2005Apr/0033.html
> for a rough list.

Ok, I think I understand.  The validity constraints that you say are
on the document itself are ones that *could* be specified by some
other mechanism than DTDs, such as XML Schemas.  But the unqualified
term "validity" or "XML validity" means "validity with respect to a
DTD as defined by the XML spec".  If the constraints are specified by
a schema, we say "schema validity", and leave that term to be defined
by the schema spec.  It seems you want a term meaning "valid according
to whichever kind of schema I am using", and I think it would be very
confusing to adopt the plain term "valid" for that, when it has been
used for so long in both SGML and XML to mean "DTD valid".

And once again for clarity, when the XML spec has a validity constraint
called "Element Valid", it means "valid according to the DTD".  If you
want a constraint like that that isn't tied to DTDs, I don't think the
XML spec is the right place for it.

-- Richard

Received on Saturday, 23 April 2005 19:55:14 UTC