[Bug 10125] New: Validation of the content of xs:annotation

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=10125

           Summary: Validation of the content of xs:annotation
           Product: XML Schema
           Version: 1.1 only
          Platform: PC
        OS/Version: Windows NT
            Status: NEW
          Severity: normal
          Priority: P2
         Component: Structures: XSD Part 1
        AssignedTo: David_E3@VERIFONE.com
        ReportedBy: mike@saxonica.com
         QAContact: www-xml-schema-comments@w3.org
                CC: cmsmcq@blackmesatech.com


1. It seems clear that elements in the xs: namespace are permitted to appear
inside xs:documentation and xs:appInfo elements. It's less clear what happens
to them if they are so included.

2. As a minimum, there should be a statement somewhere that such elements do
not generate any schema components and do not have to satisfy the (prose) rules
for the XML representation of schema components. 

3. Schema documents are required to satisfy the schema for schema documents,
and this schema imposes lax validation on the contents of xs:documentation and
xs:appInfo elements. It does not say explicitly what schema is used for
validating these contents (for example, whether or not this schema includes
components for validating elements in the XHTML namespace), but it seems hard
to avoid the conclusion that it must include the components in the schema for
schema documents itself. This is a significant burden on implementations (which
may not separate structural validation from semantic validation in the way this
implies), and it does not deliver a great deal of value to users (there's no
particular logic in saying that it's implementation-defined whether XHTML
content is validated, but there's a cast-iron guarantee that XSD content will
be validated.) Indeed, there's a good usability case to be made for NOT
validating XSD content inside annotations - a common programming practice is to
comment out code that represents work-in-progress, and there is therefore a
user expectation that if you put something in an annotation, the system isn't
going to complain if it is invalid.

I think that it would therefore be desirable to change the rules to say that
the set of schema components used to validate the content of xs:documentation
and xs:appInfo is implementation-defined, and need not necessarily include 
components from the schema for schema documents.

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Received on Friday, 9 July 2010 16:28:47 UTC