Last Call comments on Canonical XML

Hello John and everybody,

Here are some personal last call comments on Canonical XML:

- The issue of relative URIs in external entities (aka xml:base)
   needs very careful consideration. Please see other mails on this
   topic.

- The first sentence of the Abstract is too long.

- Abstract: "equivalent for the purpose of many applications"
   I would suggest to change 'many' to 'most', or even be more
   strict. Ideally (but see the xml:base issue), it should be
   possible to say something like: No XML application can assume
   that the changes due to Canonicalization won't be done
   by some other application.

- 1., sencond paragraph: 'it is not a goal' ... 'such a method is
   unachievable'. Align so that there is no change from goal to method.

- 'logically equivalent by the XML 1.0 Recommendation': This touches
   on the xml:base issue.

- 'The root also has a single element note': This is confusing,
   because this element node is also one of the children of the
   root, but the text gives a different impression.

- 'The XPath data model expects the XML processor to convert relative
   URIs to absolute URIs.': I'm very sure that this expectation is
   limited, most probably to namespace URIs. This should be
   expressed explicitly.

- 'then evaluating...': change to 'and then...'.

- The ordering of 'first namespaces, then (other/real) attributes'
   is expressed twice, both as 'imposing additional document order
   rules' and in the generation rules for element nodes. One of them,
   most probably the former, is redundant and should be removed.

- 'lexicographically least' -> 'lexicographically first'.

- In 'Comment Nodes-': add a note saying that by default, comment
   nodes are not rendered.

- Bullet list in general: Make sure there is a space before the
   hyphens, e.g. 'Root Node -' instead of 'Root Node-'.

- 'be the same one' -> 'be the same as the one'

- 'canonical form generator': This term appears for the first time
   here. On the web, the link helps to understand what it is supposed
   to mean, but on paper, this doensn't work.

Appendices:

- rational -> rationale

- for changes -> for the changes

- A.2: This too much gives the impression that canonical XML and the
   namespace Rec were/are wrong, and and XPath is right.
   I would prefer this to be rewritten to say things in a more
   neutral way, and shorter (without the theorems,...).

- A.3: Does this mean that in a plain document using no prefixes
   and no namespaces, every element will get xmlns="" added?
   Looks quite wasteful.

- References: Remove 'Avaliable at' in several instances.

Regards,    Martin.

Received on Tuesday, 1 August 2000 05:24:22 UTC