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E55 Substantive

• To: xml-editors@w...
• Subject: E55 Substantive
• From: Elliotte Rusty Harold <elharo@m...>
• Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2003 09:09:45 -0500
• Cc: xml-dev@l...

I also want to register an objection to E55. This states:

E55 Substantive

Section 4.4

     In the table of required processor behavior, change the entry for 
"Reference in EntityValue" to an "Unparsed" entity from "Forbidden" 
to "Error".

     Augment the first item in the bullet list in section 4.4.4 to read:

         * the appearance of a reference to an unparsed entity, except 
in the EntityValue in an entity declaration.

     Add a new subsection as follows:

         4.4.9 Error

         It is an error for a reference to an unparsed entity to 
appear in the EntityValue in an entity declaration.

Rationale
     This relaxes the definition of well-formedess slightly, taking 
into account the numerous parsers that actually implement "Bypassed" 
instead of "Forbidden". Making it an error instead of a fatal error, 
the definition of error applies: "Processors may detect and report 
the error and may recover from it". Consequently, processors that do 
not report an error become conformant while those that do report 
remain conformant.


Again, the problem is that it creates yet another maybe fatal, maybe 
not error which reduces interoperability.  THere doe snot appear to 
be any ambiguity about this in the current spec. A change here is 
unjustified and unnecessary. Parsers that do not correctly implement 
this requirement are nonconformant and should be fixed. That's all.

-- 

   Elliotte Rusty Harold
   elharo@m...
   Effective XML (Addison-Wesley, 2003)
   http://www.cafeconleche.org/books/effectivexml
   http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0321150406/ref%3Dnosim/cafeaulaitA

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