Re: Date and time attribute type in (X)HTML

Thanks for the feedback, summary of the results so far.

Original questions

What is the correct format for date and time in  <ins datetime="[...]"> in
a XHTML document using the XHTML 1.0 Strict DTD.
How is this "correctness" called in W3Cs terms?
Where is this "correctness" specified?

Results

1) For practical purposes, it can be assumed that the XHTML 1.0
recommendation references the HTML 4.01 specification normatively, even if
the recommendation text says informatively, and even if the there is no
clear and explicit reference to the HTML specification in the main body of
the  recommendation, but only in the abstract.

2) As good practice, a program generating XHTML should generate documents
that are both strictly conforming XHTML documents (XHTML 1.0 sect. 3.1.1)
and HTML documents (HTML 4.01 sect. 4.1). The latter definition of a HTML
document implies the attribute data type definitions (HTML 4.01 sect. 6),
including Datetime for the attribute in question.

3) The HTML definition classifies the comments in the HTML DTDs as
informative. (HTML 4.01 sect. 4.2) By analogy, the comments in the XHTML
DTDs cannot be used as normative definitions or references to other
standards. Note that the XML recommendation does not classify the comments
in the DTDs as normative or informative. For practical purposes, one can
read an XHTML DTD and the HTML DTD in parallel, and follow the constraints
in the HTML specification.

4) The terms and defintions are not complete nor sufficiently explicit for
XHTML.  For practical purposes, one might use a term like "strictly
conforming XHTML 1.0 Strict document" or "XHTML and HTML Strict document",
but it is preferred to define these terms explicitly in terms of the XHTML
recommendation or HTML specification. Note that the HTML specification
defines "HTML document" and neither "valid HTML document" nor "conforming
HTML document".

5) The HTML Working Group and the MarkUp Validator maintainers know about
this issue.
--
Wolfgang Frech
Xenium AG            www.xenium.de
Excellence in information management
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Tel +49 - (0) 89 - 42 07 98 - 29,  Fax - 40
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Received on Tuesday, 7 September 2004 08:49:39 UTC