Re: Entity references in Attr values

> What should a DOM implementation do when faced with something like this 
> when the replacement text for the geenral entity is not available  ... ?

The Infoset would say that unexpanded (for any reason) entity refs
ought to have a distinct representation.   Some might be OK (not
expanded because defined in a PE that was not read), some would
be fatal errors (all PEs were read, it still wasn't defined) if the XML
REC were more sensible about handling undeclared entities.  (It
defines a boatload of exception cases with ambiguous English.)


> In particular what should getValue() return for the corresponding 
> Attr node?

Considering that it's an error situation of some kind, and that both
the DOM (L2 anyway) and Infoset punted on how such errors are
to be reported, and the XML REC still has issues in specification
of entity handling ... why not try returning a random haiku? :)

- Dave

Received on Monday, 17 December 2001 23:09:15 UTC