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Costello, Roger L. wrote:
> So, what is an XML document? Answer: an XML document is one that has an
> XML declaration as the first thing in the file. If you open the above
> *Word* document you wonâ??t find an XML declaration as the first thing.
> If you open the above *Notepad* document you will find an XML
> declaration as the first thing.
>
>
>
This doesn't work because there are many XML documents that do not have
an XML declaration at all; and there are documents that have an XML
declaration but which are not XML documents (usually malformed documents).
According to the XML spec:
[Definition: A textual object is a well-formed XML document if:]
1. Taken as a whole, it matches the production labeled document.
2. It meets all the well-formedness constraints given in this
specification.
3. Each of the parsed entities which is referenced directly or
indirectly within the document is well-formed.
The Word example you cite is especially tricky because while the Word
file is not an XML document, the contents of that file are indeed an XML
document. There is no rule that a file must contain exactly one XML
document and nothing else. Indeed there is no rule that an XML document
must be in a file at all.
--
Elliotte Rusty Harold elharo@m...
Java I/O 2nd Edition Just Published!
http://www.cafeaulait.org/books/javaio2/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0596527500/ref=nosim/cafeaulaitA/
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