LC-218 solving the C0 control-character issue

Dear Misha and Martin:

The W3C XML Schema Working Group has spent the last several months
working through the comments received from the public on the last-call
draft of the XML Schema specification.  We thank you for the comments
you made on our specification during our last-call comment period, and
want to make sure you know that all comments received during the
last-call comment period have been recorded in our last-call issues
list (http://www.w3.org/2000/05/12-xmlschema-lcissues).

Among other issues, you raised the point registered as issue LC-218,
which suggests that XML Schema "address" (in a way not specified) the
problems caused by the fact that XML 1.0 does not allow most
characters in the C0 space to occur in XML documents.

Earlier this summer I sent you an individual reply, observing that it
might be easier to come to grips with this problem if one had a better
idea of where such characters actually occur in practice, and why they
are there.  This remains true, but the fact of the matter is that the
WG, in discussing this issue, came to the conclusion that your concern
is rather with XML 1.0 than with XML Schema.  We are commissioned by
our charter to deal with XML 1.0 documents, and we are not in a
position to rewrite XML 1.0 to deal with the problem you describe.

Larry Masinter suggested in July that XML Schema could introduce a
convention for referring to such characters, analogous to character
references or to RFCs 2047 and 2231.

   http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-xml-schema-comments/2000JulSep/0016

It's not clear to the XML Schema WG why such a convention belongs in
the XML Schema specification, rather than in XML 1.1 or in a
free-standing document or in a set of recommendations for translating
data from other systems into XML.  (XML Schema is one part of what
people will want to have, to do such translations on a large scale,
but by no means everything.  The XML Schema spec does not include any
set of rules for translating into XML from SQL databases, or Word
documents, or Java objects, or anything else.)  It does not seem to us
to fall within the scope outlined by our charter.

It would be helpful to us to know whether you are satisfied with the
decision taken by the WG on this issue, or wish your dissent from the
WG's decision to be recorded for consideration by the Director of
the W3C.

with best regards,

-C. M. Sperberg-McQueen
  World Wide Web Consortium
  Co-chair, W3C XML Schema WG

Received on Thursday, 5 October 2000 21:50:09 UTC