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.

(please CC replies, I'm off-list)

-David Waite

Received on Thursday, 3 October 2002 15:32:10 UTC