Re: comments from the XML Schema WG on Last Call draft of Namespaces in XML 1.1

At 2002-11-22 07:19, Richard Tobin wrote:
>This is not a formal response to your comment, just my view on one of
>the issues you raise.
>
>You say:
>
>  We have found it exceedingly helpful, both in the XML Schema
>  specification and in the internal discussions of our Working Group,
>  to have several different pairs of terms, which denote respectively:
>
>     * (a) names which are allowed to have a colon, vs. names which are
>     not allowed to have a colon
>
>     * (b) names which are associated with a namespace by the rules of
>     the Namespace Recommendation, vs. names which are not assigned
>     directly to any namespace
>
>     * (c) names which in fact have a colon, vs. names with no colon
>
>  Distinction (a) is conveyed by the terms QName and NCName, both in
>  this spec and in ours. Distinction (b) we have often made by means of
>  the terms 'namespace-qualified name' vs. 'unqualified name'. We
>  denote distinction (c) with the terms 'prefixed name' and 'unprefixed
>  name'.
>
>(a) is not quite right, or at least not exhaustive.  There are three
>categories of names in namespace-well-formed documents: names that can
>have multiple colons, names that can have a single colon, and names
>that cannot have a colon.  Names with more than one colon cannot
>appear in namespace-valid documents, but in a valid and
>namespace-well-formed but not namespace-valid document the ID "a:b:c"
>is a Name but not a QName.

Thank you; you are quite right.  We didn't end up converging on any
technology for the multiple-colon possibility, since we don't have anything
to say about it (I think we mostly assume it doesn't exist, which may be
a danger), but a good set of terms should provide a term for it.

This illustrates fairly well why we believe it would be good if the
NS Rec specified a more capacious terminology -- you guys have more of
the nuances in your heads than NS-using WGs like XML Schema do, and
it's better for you guys to do things right once than for the rest of
us to do them mostly-right several times.

>The term "qualified name" should be used for names that are subject to
>namespace interpretation (even if they may end up in no namespace).
>We use the production QName for such names.  Of course these are
>exactly the names that may have a no colon or a single colon; but if
>in some context it were decided to use names with a colon for some
>other purpose, I think it would be a mistake to use the QName
>production.  That is, the production QName should be though of as
>corresponding to qualified name rather than merely meaning "zero or
>one colons".

Either way, I quail to note that our usage (at least internally
within the WG) has deviated significantly from the usage you and the
NS spec prescribe.

Michael

Received on Monday, 25 November 2002 20:45:55 UTC