Re: URIs quack like a duck

> The problem with that, I think, is that an element can have several
> xmlns attributes, for different namespaces, attached to it.
An element is only ever in one namespace.

> So there's then a question as to which namespace the
> xsi:schemaLocation refers to.

It refers to the schema tat describes the language of which the
element is part. That schema may use one or more namespaces which may
or may not be included in the namespaces declared on that element.


> By the way, adding a new attribute (let's for the moment say we call it
> xmldtd:foo) provides a way of dealing with an existing troublesome
> problem: validation according to DTDs.  We can then implicitly prefix
> all the names in the DTD located by xmldtd:foo with the prefix -- and
> behold, validation now works.

If, as appears, you are happy to use the same prefix for all uses of the
namespace in a given document, you can already write the dtd so that
validation and namespaces cooperate, see for example the mathml2 dtd
that allows mathml elements to have any prefix (or no prefix)
so long as the prefix doesn't change mid document.

This (unlike the xmldtd suggestion) has the benefit of working with
the installed base of dtd validating systems.

David

Received on Thursday, 1 June 2000 14:06:58 UTC