Re: strange treatment of namespaces in RDF/XML

From: Dave Beckett <dave.beckett@bristol.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: strange treatment of namespaces in RDF/XML
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2003 10:52:22 +0100

> 
> Peter, your original comment 2003-06-04
> was on 
>   http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/WD-rdf-syntax-grammar-20030123/#section-Namespace
> Section 5.1
> [[
> 	Within RDF/XML documents it is not permitted to use XML namespaces
> 	whose namespace URI is either:
> 	- the RDF Namespace URI Reference concatenated with additional
>  	  characters or 
> 	- the XML Namespace URI Reference concatenated with additional
> 	  characters. 
> ]]
> 
> I discussed the reason for these words with some of the RDF Core WG and
> it seems that this is overly prescriptive.  The latter part in
> particular is not needed.
> 
> So I will make the following change to 5.1:
> [[
> 	Within RDF/XML documents it is not permitted to use XML namespaces
> 	whose namespace URI is the RDF Namespace URI Reference
>         concatenated with additional characters.
> ]]

Better, but I am still confused as to the rationale for this restriction.

> plus in 6.1.2 Element Event
>   http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/WD-rdf-syntax-grammar-20030123/#section-element-node
> I will remove the clause in paragraph 2 of the attributes accessor
> description and reword to try to make this mapping clearer.
> 
> [[
> attributes
> 
>     Made from the value of element information item property
>     [attributes] which is a set of attribute information items.
> 
>     If this set contains an attribute information item xml:lang
>     ([namespace-name] property with value
>     "http://www.w3.org/XML/1998/namespace" and [local-name] property
>     with value "lang"), it is removed from the set of attribute
>     information items and the *language* accessor of the element
>     event is assigned to the value of the [normalized-value] property
>     of the attribute information item.
> 
>     All other attribute information items in the set with property
>     [prefix] beginning with "xml" (case independent) are then
>     removed[REF1].  Note: the [base URI] accessor is computed by XML
>     Base before any xml:base attribute information item is deleted.

This still does not match up with the names reserved in XML and XML
Namespaces.  For example the name XmL is reserved by XML, but it is not
subject to this special treatment.

>     The remaining attribute information items are then used to
>     construct a new set of Attribute Events which is assigned as the
>     value of this accessor.  
> ]]
> 
> 
> I will also add pointers to the references in XML and Namespaces in
> XML on reserved names somewhere near [REF1] and probably elsewhere.
> 
> Dave

Again, I do not understand the rationale for this special treatment.

peter

Received on Wednesday, 11 June 2003 17:45:40 UTC