C.16 (Attribute values if DTD not complete)

• From: Jon Bosak <bosak@atlantic-83.Eng.Sun.COM>
• Date: Sat, 9 Nov 1996 14:58:24 -0800
• To: w3c-sgml-wg@w3.org
• Message-Id: <199611092258.OAA09852@boethius.eng.sun.com>

This is one of a series of reports on recent decisions of the SGML ERB.

C.16 When given an incomplete DTD, XML processors and applications may
make any assumptions about the treatment of attributes and their values
which are consistent with the document.  They will be required neither
to assume that all attributes are implicity declared CDATA, nor that
attributes with names beginning IDREF, ID, ENTITY, etc. have the types
IDREF, ID, ENTITY, etc.

Decision: No.  After much discussion, this became:

C.16 In the absence of a declaration, attributes shall behave as if
they had been declared CDATA.

Decision: Yes.  Dissenting: Hollander.

(Note: The ERB intends to revisit the possibility of reserving certain
attribute names such as "ID" during Phase II of this project, during
which it will no doubt have to standardize other incursions into the
name space in order to specify hypertext mechanisms.)

Received on Saturday, 9 November 1996 18:00:25 UTC