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Hi Fellows,
English is not my best language, so after all, forgive my typos and misspelling. I agree with the needings of language indication, even if the referenced language not being "human language", however I no sense in assigning a meaning to empty value. I do belive that this should raise an error.
>
> <p lang="en">
> Here is an example of some C code:
> <pre xml:lang="">
> #include "stdio.h"
> main() {printf("Hello world!"};}
> </pre>
> </p>
>
If we keep in mind that the purpose of XML is to be a META language, we already agree (I supose) that it is intended ot be interpreted by machines, not humans. Being so, a LANG attribute are very handy for example, calling a syntax/ortograph corrector, or selecting a particular formated message from a list of messages. All those uses are not restricted to "human messages", where we indicated "this message is japanese, this other is in english, and this third in DE-JP" (I doubt someone sane uses this!! ;). I may be exchanging software routines using XMLed messages inf all flavors of computer languages. I have to decide wich one is in Java to be used in my code, or, I may need to check for this code syntax and for this I have to know, is this ANSI-C? MS-C? whatever.
And we are not talking about just computer languages, but all flavors of "language". Language is stricly tied to describing things, communicating; Wich is one of the reasons for metadata existence. I guess this is enough reson to extend the LANG attribute.
Now, if by any reason I feel the needing to indicate that my message was wrote in this or that particular language, what is the point with an empty (blank) value? If so, then I don't need to use the lang attribute at all. An empty value, IMHO, should raise an error to alert the sender that he is missing something.
Cheers,
Eric.
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