xml:space, xml:lang, and namespaces

• From: Richard Tobin <richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
• Date: Mon, 31 May 1999 17:09:26 +0100
• To: xml-editor@w3.org
• Cc: ht@cogsci.ed.ac.uk
• Message-Id: <29619.199905311609@doyle.cogsci.ed.ac.uk>

The Namespaces recommendation defines the "xml" prefix as being bound
to http://www.w3.org/XML/1998/namespace.  This suggests that it should
be possible to refer to the attributes xml:space and xml:lang by means
of other prefixes bound to that URL.  However, this would be
inconsistent with the original XML recommendation, since

  <foo xml:space="preserve">
   <bar foo:space="default" xmlns:foo="http://www.w3.org/XML/1998/namespace">
    <fred>...</fred>
   </bar>
  </foo>

would have default whitespace behaviour in <fred> while the XML
recommendation requires that whitespace should be preserved.

If the syntax WG has not already done so, they should consider amending
the XML recommendation to refer to the space and lang attributes in
the XML namespace, rather than xml:space and xml:lang.

-- Richard

Received on Monday, 31 May 1999 12:09:34 UTC