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Re: version numbers and infosets

• To: Richard Tobin <richard@c...>, xml-dev@l...
• Subject: Re: version numbers and infosets
• From: Elliotte Rusty Harold <elharo@m...>
• Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 09:04:18 -0400
• Cc: xml-editor@w...
• In-reply-to: <200207231226.NAA21321@m...>
• References: <200207231226.NAA21321@m...>

At 1:26 PM +0100 7/23/02, Richard Tobin wrote:


>But as I said, I've been persuaded that we shouldn't require 1.0
>parsers to reject documents labelled other than 1.0.  What I would
>really appreciate is some feedback on the possibility of changing the
>terminology so that such documents are "not 1.0 well-formed, but
>acceptable by 1.0 parsers" rather than "1.0 well-formed, but
>rejectable by 1.0 parsers".
>

This just makes the existing mess of different conformance levels to 
XML worse. Currently there are three levels of conformance:

1. Well-formed
2. Well-formed with no optional errors (like ambiguous content models 
or version="1.1")
3. Valid

You want to add a fourth level, not well-formed but OK. This 
significantly complexifies the XML story. It makes to impossible to 
say a parser must reject all malformed documents. It adds still more 
weasel words we have to use when trying to teach this stuff 
accurately. I think this is a very bad idea. Leave the existing spec 
alone: no erratum, no change. XML 1.0 is defined by the XML 1.0 spec 
as originally published. Make any changes in future versions if you 
really must, but don't touch XML 1.0.
-- 

+-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+
| Elliotte Rusty Harold | elharo@m... | Writer/Programmer |
+-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+
|          XML in a  Nutshell, 2nd Edition (O'Reilly, 2002)          |
|              http://www.cafeconleche.org/books/xian2/              |
|  http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0596002920/cafeaulaitA/  |
+----------------------------------+---------------------------------+
|  Read Cafe au Lait for Java News:  http://www.cafeaulait.org/      |
|  Read Cafe con Leche for XML News: http://www.cafeconleche.org/    |
+----------------------------------+---------------------------------+

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: version numbers and infosets
    • From: Richard Tobin <richard@c...>
  • Re: version numbers and infosets
    • From: "Jeff Rafter" <jeffrafter@d...>
  • Re: version numbers and infosets
    • From: "Rick Jelliffe" <ricko@a...>

• References:
  • Re: version numbers and infosets
    • From: Richard Tobin <richard@c...>

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