Re: Are *relative* URIs as namespace nemes considered harmful?

   David Carlisle wrote:

   > This is
   > obviously bad if the namespace is defining something like MathMl or
   > XHTML, but if it's just a namespace containing a few variables in a one
   > off XSL stylesheet, I don't think this really matters too much.
   > (Perhaps it does, this is where my understanding of the argument
   > falters)

   It matters in that another document may contain the same non-absolute
   namespace name, and the two documents will then have their names in
   the same namespace, confounding anyone who wants to process them.


yes of course, but the danger of such a clash is greater with the
absolute interpretation.

If I use
xmlns:a= "a" xmlns:b= "b"
to get a couple of namespace to use in a top level of an xsl stylesheet,
then obviously I am neither claiming nor need global uniqueness for
these constructs (I just need them to be not XSL, due to XSLT syntax rules)

With the literal interpretation "a" would only ever clash with someone
else who had similarly intentionally not chosen to claim any global
uniqueness, 

however  with an absolute interpretation there is an possiblity of a
clash with someone who had carefully specified an absolute URI 
http://www.example.com/x/y/z/a if my stylesheet file ever ended up being
located on example.com's server. 

So if the absolute interpretation were to be introduced, I would curse,
and then change all such uses to have some arbitrary uri scheme prefix
mailto: or file:/// or something.

David

Received on Friday, 19 May 2000 14:23:55 UTC