Re: SD5 - Namespaces - New Version 2

On Thu, 22 May 1997, Andrew Layman wrote:

> SD5 - Namespaces:
 
> The identity of a namespace is independent of the document (if any)
> defining its terms. That is, a namespace does not equal a DTD. 
> Namespaces are simply unique name domains.

Does the "if any" mean that it may not be possible to construct a DTD to
match the name domain? In what way could a doctype FOO not be associated
with a name-domain FOO? (Perhaps you mean "a name space does not
_necessarily_ equal an _existing_ DTD"?  Basically, I'm not seeing the
point of the distinction you're drawing.)

>  Additionally, we want to make it common that documents incorporate
>  elements and attributes from multiple schemata. 

> Subelements (or attributes) from different namespaces will be used
> within  a single parent element. 

Can I use an attribute from one namespace to qualify a GI from another
namespace? (Actually, what could that accomplish?) If I can't, then does
the namespace of the GI fix the namespace for its attributes? Could you
clarify this, please? 

> Proposal: 
> 
>  The colon (":") character is now a legal character in names.
> 
>  A name containing a colon is to be interpreted as having two parts,
>  where the part preceding the colon is the name of a namespace.
>  That is, the namespace qualifies the element name.

Sorry to be harping on this, but what happens with colons in attribute
names? Will there be an extra well-formedness/validation constraint
involved? I think an example with attribute usage would help a lot.


Arjun

Received on Friday, 23 May 1997 01:54:51 UTC