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RE: DSDL: use cases: namespace declaration notation

• To: "'Ronald Bourret'" <rpbourret@r...>,<xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: RE: DSDL: use cases: namespace declaration notation
• From: "Michael Kay" <michael.h.kay@n...>
• Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 12:58:26 +0100
• Cc: <dsdl-comment@d...>
• Importance: Normal
• In-reply-to: <3D09D09F.BF257BA2@r...>
• Reply-to: <michael.h.kay@n...>

> Actually, I think we disagree only on the point of whether 
> non-qualified names in the absence of a default namespace are 
> "in" a namespace. We both agree that they can be treated as 
> being in a null namespace, and both theory and practice 
> proceed nicely from that point.

There is no null namespace. We can say that the namespace of a name is
null, meaning that the name is in no namespace; but it is wrong to say
that the name is in the null namespace, because there is no such thing.

Of course, there is a set of names containing all names that are in no
namespace, and since a namespace is essentially a set of names (despite
the assertion of the Namespaces REC to the contrary), it would have been
easy and elegant to define this set as a namespace; but the spec chose
not to do that. Every namespace is a set of names, but not every set of
names is a namespace.

Michael Kay
Software AG
home: Michael.H.Kay@n...
work: Michael.Kay@s... 

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  • Re: DSDL: use cases: namespace declaration notation
    • From: Ronald Bourret <rpbourret@r...>

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