Re: namespace scope for attribute names

This is a formal response from the XML Core WG to your comments on the
Namespaces in XML 1.1 last call working draft.

If we haven't heard from you by the end of Monday December 9th, we
will assume for the purposes of our planned CR request that you have
no objection to our resolution.

Commenter email address: mass@akuma.org

> Subject: namespace scope for attribute names
> 
> I read over the XML Names 1.1 Working Draft 
> (http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-xml-names11-20020905/) and was curious why 
> the namespace or non-prefixed attributes was not clarified in the newer 
> specification.
> 
>  There were several discussions late 2000 on this list speicifically on 
> what namespace non-prefixed attributes were in - the general consensus 
> seems to be that the wording in section 5.1 that "A namespace 
> declaration is considered to apply to the element where it is specified 
> and its attributes, and to all elements and their attributes within the 
> content of that element, unless overridden by another namespace 
> declaration with the same NSAttName part" means that the statement from 
> section 5.2 "Note that default namespaces do not apply directly to 
> attributes" is actually staing that a default namespaces does not apply 
> directly to non-prefixed attributes, but instead they get their 
> namespace based on the element which contains them. Most of the evidence 
> supporting this is in the Normative section of the document. The other 
> interpretation is that the namespace in which non-prefixed attributes 
> exist is always fixed, and cannot be overridden.

Summary: accepted

This has been clarified.  We have removed appendix B, and adopted the
"expanded name" terminology of XPath, and explicitly state that

 - the namespace name for an unprefixed attribute name is always null;
 - the interpretation of unprefixed attributes is determined by the
   element on which they appear.

-- Richard Tobin, Namespaces 1.1 editor

Received on Thursday, 28 November 2002 13:39:41 UTC