xml:id

about
http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/xmlIDsemantics-32-20030512.html

Hi

1. "Conclusions

This document would benefit from more discussion. No conclusion is 
presented."

One solution described:

"Add a predeclared id attribute to the xml namespace

The obvious solution to avoiding a clash with existing usage is to use a 
namespace-qualified attribute name; and the obvious solution for 
avoiding a dependence on a DTD is to use the reserved xml namespace, 
which does not need declaration. A new xml:id attribute, (in the same 
way that xml:base added a predeclared attribute to the existing xml:lang 
and xml:space attributes) which is predeclared to be of type ID, could 
be used by any XML vocabulary that wanted interoperability even in the 
case that DTDs were not being read. Because it is predeclared, it could 
not clash with whatever a DTD or schem asaid, so processing would be 
identical for validating parsers, non-validating but DTD-reading 
parsers, and non-DTD-reading parsers.

This solution is easy to understand. A disadvantage is that XML 
vocabulary specifications would need to be revised to use this new 
attribute name, and the XML specification itself (or a supplemental 
specification, similar to that for xml:base) would need to describe the 
functionality. Older content would be no better off, but no worse off 
either. It preserves backward compatibility and does not affect 
well-formedness."

This would resolve reliance on the DTD language, without introducing 
reliance on any specific schema language.

(I don't care much for "well formed XML", but I also don't like to rely 
on DTD, neither for validation nor for IDs. IMHO, DTD should be removed 
from XML 1.0, and there should be a way to declare the exact document 
type (namespace plus version, (etc?)) in some XML syntax instead of the 
syntax of some schema language.)

The disadvantages described in the original document are no big deal IMHO.

2. Comment on formulation

"XHTML 1.0

XHTML 1.0 is a conversion of HTML 4 into XML syntax, for delivery to 
existing tag-soup HTML browsers."

While XHTML 1.0 makes it possible to create "HTML compatible" documents, 
it's very possible and valid to create documents that would work in no 
tagsoup browser. (external entities would probably confuse most old 
browsers already).

http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-media-types/
http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-media-types/#summary
thus differentiates between
   XHTML 1.0 (HTML compatible)
and
   XHTML 1.0 (other)

Tobi

-- 
http://www.pinkjuice.com/

Received on Saturday, 17 May 2003 10:34:17 UTC