Re: 2. Effect of normalisation step on the DOM/Infoset

/ Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch> was heard to say:
| On Wed, 5 Jan 2005, Norman Walsh wrote:
|> | | 4 Processing xml:id Attributes
|> | |
|> | | Each xml:id attribute is processed in the following way:
|> |
|> | It is unclear whether this processing is intended to change the DOM
|> | (or the infoset, for that matter) or not. If one has the following
|> | document:
|> |
|> |    <test xml:id=" test "/>
|> |
|> | ...what would be returned by:
|> |
|> |    document.documentElement.getAttributeNS('http://www.w3.org/XML/1998/namespace', 'id');
|> |
|> | Should it be " test " or "test"?
|> |
|> | I think it should be made clear that the processing mentioned in this
|> | section is merely internal to the xml:id processor and does not affect
|> | the infoset or the DOM. (This comment obviously doesn't apply to the
|> | "ID Assignment" phase, where you definitely do want the infoset and
|> | the DOM to be updated, but that's another matter.)
|> 
|> On the contrary, I think the purpose of attribute value normalization is
|> so that down-stream processes will see the normalized value.
|
| This causes a backwards-compatibility issue. A document processed by a 
| DOM-aware XML processor will create a different DOM than one processed by 
| a DOM-aware XML processor with XML ID support.

This issue already exists. Consider:

<!DOCTYPE test SYSTEM "test.dtd">
<test id=" test "/>

Assuming that test.dtd defines the 'id' attribute as an ID, then some
parsers will see that attribute value as " test " and some will see it
as "test" depending on whether or not they process the external
declaration.

| I think this is a very bad situation to be in. Scripts frequently trip 
| over this kind of problem already, and I feel quite strongly that we 
| should not make it worse.

The xml:id specification improves the situation by encouraging uniform
behavior (irrespective of validation or processing of the external subset)
for attributes named "xml:id".

Adoptiong the resolution that I believe you would prefer, namely that
xml:id processing would use the value presented in the infoset without
any additional normalization, perpetuates the existing
interoperability problems.

| Thus I disagree with this resolution.

Are you persuaded by my observations to change your mind?

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

-- 
Norman.Walsh@Sun.COM / XML Standards Architect / Sun Microsystems, Inc.
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