[Bug 1500] XHTML-sent-as-text/html is parsed as XML

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=1500


ot@w3.org changed:

           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 CC|                            |shane@aptest.com
             Status|NEW                         |RESOLVED
         Resolution|                            |INVALID




------- Comment #12 from ot@w3.org  2007-04-30 15:49 -------
This bug has been puzzling me for the longest time, but I think I am finally
grasping it...

Quoting Shane McCarron (XHTML WG) in 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-validator/2007Apr/0175.html
[[
All XHTML family docment types should be processed using the XML parsing 
mode of the validator.  There is never a case where the SGML parsing 
mode would work, since all the DTDs are XML DTDs, not SGML DTDs.
]]

I never really understood Steven's saying that "documents served as text/html
should be treated as HTML", nor found any clear indication that it was relevant
to the parse mode used by the validator. This confirmation by Shane that the
XHTML family of document are based on XML DTDs and therefore should obviously
use the XML mode is the kind of disambiguation that I was looking for.

When Ian says: [[
I would like to see the validator reject any XHTML-sent-as-text/html as being
of
the wrong MIME type.
]] 
I have to disagree based on http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/#media

Also: [[
The fact that the validator ignores this means that documents that don't comply
to appendix C of XHTML 1.0 are being marked as valid when in fact they aren't
conformant and won't be handled correctly.
]]
The XHTML spec's prose is not as strong as you imply here. Appendix C is
informative, and not referred to in the conformance section -
http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/#docconf

Granted, http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/#media is a little confusing because it
refers to an informative section (app C0, from a normative section(section 5.1
on media types is normative) - but not refered to in the conformance section.
Maybe this will all be clarified in a future errata version of XHTML 1.0. In
the meantime, I believe the practical course to follow is:
* to close this bug as "not a bug". There is nothing wrong with parsing XHTML
in XML mode
* to keep making progress on integrating the Appendix C checker to the
validator - see Bug 4514 - and figure out whether problems raised by the appC
checker should be errors or warnings.

Received on Monday, 30 April 2007 15:49:47 UTC