- From: Gavin Nicol <gtn@ebt.com>
- Date: Fri, 1 Nov 1996 02:05:57 -0500
- To: tbray@textuality.com
- CC: w3c-sgml-wg@w3.org
>Right. The reason we can get away with this is that we are not claiming >that an XML processor is always an SGML parser. When it's *validating* >we want the behavior to be effectively identical to that of an XML >parser, and the spec needs to lock that in. The behavior described >(not having to read an external text entity) only applies when the >XML processor is *not trying to validate*. Which is not an 8879-compliant >operation in the first place. Just to clarify the point: the only reason I can see for the distinction between validating and non-validating parsers is that validating parsers must resolve all entities *before* they can claim a document to be valid, (one of the goals of parsing) whereas in non-validating systems, the chief goals can be met without necessarily resolving all entities. In neither case is there a limitation of resolving entities before parsing can proceed beyond the entity reference, nor is there a restriction on pre-fetching entities.
Received on Friday, 1 November 1996 02:07:34 UTC