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Re: When to check entity WFness according to 4.3.2

• To: Richard Tobin <richard@i...>
• Subject: Re: When to check entity WFness according to 4.3.2
• From: Jeff Rafter <lists@j...>
• Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 09:21:44 -0700
• Cc: xml-dev@l..., xml-editor@w...
• In-reply-to: <20041026150905.84D00190B08@m...>
• References: <20041026150905.84D00190B08@m...>
• User-agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.8 (Windows/20040913)

 > The requirement is that "Each of the parsed entities which is
 > referenced directly or indirectly within the document is well-formed."
 > An entity is certainly *declared* in the prolog, but it is not
 > *referenced* there.

It can be referenced there in an attribute value declaration but that is 
really not the point. I have to agree with Karl, and must admit to being 
very frustrated by the opaqueness of the recommendation in this area. I 
have spent three days retrofitting a parser to perform a check that was 
not necessary-- and I am sure I am not the only person to have done so.

 > The requirement is that "Each of the parsed entities which is
 > referenced directly or indirectly within the document is well-formed."

Is *far* more clear than

   "4.3.2 The document entity is well-formed if it matches the
    production labeled <document>."

Which links to:

   "[1] document ::= prolog element Misc*"

If at that point you return to your reading in 4.3.2 you encounter:

   "An internal general parsed entity is well-formed if its
    replacement text matches the production labeled content."

By then you already missed the boat. You forgot to check what the 
implications of a wellformed *textual object* is-- which happens to 
include the <document> production-- but is not referenced anywhere in 
section 4.

I agree that there needs to be some sort of erratum here to clarify 
things. At worst, I would love to see "well-formed" in "An internal 
general parsed entity is well-formed" be turned into a link that points 
to http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/#sec-well-formed.

But a clarification sentence of something like:

   "Internal general parsed entities should only be checked for\
    well-formedness if they are <included> or <included in literal>"

would help immensely. For most implementers this is a confusing area and 
can be clarified quite easily.

Thanks
Jeff Rafter

• References:
  • Re: When to check entity WFness according to 4.3.2
    • From: richard@i... (Richard Tobin)

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