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checklink: Is there any chance that XML files could be allowed to run through the link checker?

From: Michael Bowen <mbowen@vcccd.net>
Date: Wed, 01 Dec 2004 02:08:10 -0800
Message-Id: <5.1.0.14.0.20041201020737.023b14e0@127.0.0.1>
To: www-validator@w3.org

Yes, I know that XML files are supposed to contain data, not (X)HTML.

But I have some XHTML 1.1 + MathML 2.0 files that Windows IE refuses to 
handle (well, at least it refuses to handle the MathML parts). This is the 
case even after I've kludged the registry, for example, as suggested in 
(1). So, as a workaround, I put the files on the server with the extension 
".xml" instead of ".xhtml".

With this "fix", and the proper DOCTYPE declaration, I can make both major 
browsers happy (they render my files, including all the math; see, for 
example (2)). It also makes the Markup Validation Service happy (I get the 
blue page, not the red page). But the link checker turns up its nose, 
telling me (correctly, but inconveniently) that my content type is 
application/xml, apparently without bothering to sniff my DOCTYPE.

Would it be possible to allow link-checking in such a file, perhaps with a 
well-deserved warning message that I really shouldn't be doing this?

--MB


(1)  http://www.peterprovost.org/archive/2004/10/22/2003.aspx (getting IE 
to recognize the standard MIME type for XHTML files)

(2)  http://faculty.oxnardcollege.edu/~mbowen/answers/sb5ch41.xml (sample 
file; please let me know if you find any errors) 
Received on Wednesday, 1 December 2004 10:44:30 UTC

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