Conditional sections in external parameter-entities

Hello,

     According to Section 3.4 of the XML 1.0, Second Edition [1]:

[Definition: Conditional sections are portions of the document type declaration external subset . . . .

     That seems to imply that the replacement text of an external 
parameter-entity reference in a DeclSep in the internal subset cannot 
contain a conditional section.  Furthermore, according to Section 2.8 [2]:

Like the internal subset, the external subset and any external parameter 
entities referenced in a DeclSep must consist of a series of complete markup declarations of the types 
allowed by the non-terminal symbol markupdecl, interspersed with white space or parameter-entity references. However, portions of the contents of the external subset or of these 
external parameter entities may conditionally be ignored by using the conditional section construct; this is not allowed in the internal subset.

     Again, the final clause seems to imply that such an external 
parameter-entity reference in the internal subset cannot contain a 
conditional section.  However, it depends on what is considered to be the 
internal subset.  Does the internal subset consist of markupdecl, 
PEReferences and white space, or does it consist of the markupdecl and 
whitespace specified directly along with the replacement text of the parameter entity references?  If it's the former, 3.4 and 2.8 
contradict one another; if it's the latter, 3.4 and 2.8 are consistent 
with one another.

Thanks,

Henry
[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-xml-20001006#sec-condition-sect
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-xml-20001006#sec-prolog-dtd
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Henry Zongaro      XML Parsers development
IBM SWS Toronto Lab   Tie Line 778-6044;  Phone (416) 448-6044
mailto:zongaro@ca.ibm.com