Re: Clarify that documents with DOCTYPE but without markup declaration are not subject to validation

Jirka Kosek, Tue, 21 Jan 2014 15:17:08 +0100:
> On 19.1.2014 21:29, Leif Halvard Silli wrote:
>> Therefore, my proposal is to extract rules or guidance for what to do 
>> when the DOCTYPE declaration points to no markup declaration and place 
>> this into the 6th edition of XML. (Or to put it differently: define 
>> what to do when the DOCTYPE lacks an internal or external DTD.) 
> 
> I don't think this makes sense. Whether validation is done is decided
> not by document itself, but by processor you use -- in terms of XML 1.0
> spec you can use validating or non-validating processor.
> (http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/#proc-types)
> 
> If some tool triggers validating mode on encountering <!DOCTYPE> then I
> suggest appraoching developers of such tool and ask for some option that
> will allow control of such behaviour.
> 
> I don't think that behaviour you describe is generic and is implied by
> statements in XML 1.0 spec.

But they cannot report validity errors when the lack anything to 
validate it against.

The behavior of xmllint is OK: When it fails to find a DTD, it reports 
that the *process* known as validation failed: “validity error : 
Validation failed: no DTD found !“ (even if I think it could delete the 
phrase "validity error").

However, I have another XML tool which, in face of the HTML5 doctype, 
reports an error for every single element or attribute the document 
contains. And btw, that same tool shows a behavior similar to that of 
xmllint if I use the SYSTEM variant of the HTML5 doctype - <!DOCTYPE 
html SYSTEM "about:legacy-compat">.

A document that lacks DTD is simply ”not valid” 
<http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/#sec-prolog-dtd>. And, as not valid, 
whether it has validation errors is a question that is out of the 
question.

Leif Halvard Silli

Received on Tuesday, 21 January 2014 17:31:09 UTC