Re: Update on namespaces

[David Durand]
> If someone could explain how the notion of validity could be
> plaubily extended in the next 10 days to cover some GI-hacking
> proposal, my objections don't have any weight. But even the
> advocates of such proposals have not made that claim.

Disclaimer: I couldn't care less about the resolution of the namespace
debate.

Valid documents must have DTDs.  In the short term, there need not be
a way to automagically import things from other namespaces for valid
documents; valid XML instances can use an explicit DTD:

<?XML version="1.0"?>
<?XML-namespace some-syntax="HTML 3.2 Final" labeled-as="html"?>
<?XML-namespace some-syntax="FAQ DTD" labled-as="faq"?>
<!DOCTYPE valid [
<!ELEMENT valid   (html:h1,(html:p|faq:q|faq:a)*)>
<!ELEMENT html:h1 (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT html:p  (#PCDATA|html:q)*>
<!ELEMENT faq:q   (#PCDATA|html:q)*>
<!ELEMENT faq:a   (#PCDATA|html:q)*>
<!ELEMENT html:q  (#PCDATA)>
]>
<valid>
<html:h1>This document is valid XML!</html:h1>

<html:p>The names with colons, from a validation point of view, are
just names.</html:p>

<html:p>However, a processor can associate semantics with the elements
based on the namespace declarations.  The processor can say,
<html:q>Ah-hah&#8212;<html:q>html:q</html:q> is a <html:q>q</html:q>
from <html:q>HTML 3.2 Final</html:q>, which I know how to
handle.</html:p>
</valid>

Since valid documents already require a DTD, namespaces do not add an
additional burden.

-Chris
-- 
Christopher R. Maden                  One Richmond Square
DynaText SIT Technical Support        Providence, RI 02906 USA
Inso Corporation                      +1.401.421.9550 (voice)
Electronic Publishing Solutions       +1.401.521.2030 (facsimile)

Received on Wednesday, 18 June 1997 15:34:59 UTC