[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: <?xml declaration
At 22:26 10/12/97 +0000, Richard Light wrote: > >Hi, > >I notice that the current draft has switched the case of the XML >declaration and its arguments to lower case: > ><?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> > >Now that case is significant, this presumably matters. Is there a >particular reason for this? Other PIs will have a PItarget where 'xml' >sits, and this isn't constrained to be any particular case. Wouldn't it >be kinder to make it '<?' ('XML'|'xml') ... ?! > >(The DTD declarations (<!ELEMENT, etc.) remain in upper case, presumably >for compatibility with what SGML systems produce.) Maybe WG members authorised to speak about this will answer the 'why' questions :-) The main problems now facing XML-DEV'ers are: - to remember what the various cases are in the XML spec. Of course the parsers will remind us ungently :-) [These are Draconian bomb-out errors unless I am mistaken :-)] - to remember what the case sensitivity is in *other peoples* DTDs and documents. The second promises to be a real problem. (BTW I support the WG's motives in introducing case sensitivity). I don't know whether we can help ameliorate it here. This sort of thing: [bringgg, bringgg]. "Hi Sue, my XML document has bombed out with 'unknown element FOOBAR'." "Mary, did you remember the capitals?" "yes, I put them all in!" "How many?" "The whole lot." "What? Two?" "No, all SIX". "Ah, you should only have two." "Where?" "The F and the B." "Oh, well HTML is all caps". "Yes, but this isn't HTML." "Well it's a sort of extended HTML, isn't it?." ... and so on ... I have no idea how to construct CML cases at present. If I follow the XML spec I get all-lower-case-with-dashes-between-words. OK, except that -'- is not a very friendly character for forming java names from. If I follow the WC namespace proposal I get random upper and lower case for namespaces and for elements. If I follow the RDF I get consistent namespace case and some capitalisation in names. So: PLEA TO W3C Please, it would help us a lot if at least the W3C could use a consistent case style in their public-facing documents. At the moment it suggests they haven't addressed this problem. [I don't believe they don't care.] If this happened, at least some of the rest of us can follow W3C style. I doubt we can convince the whole world to use one style, but languages like Java and C++ do quite a good job of gently persuading people to use a communal approach. XML/W3 could do, if they address it. P. Peter Murray-Rust, Director Virtual School of Molecular Sciences, domestic net connection VSMS http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/vsms, Virtual Hyperglossary http://www.venus.co.uk/vhg xml-dev: A list for W3C XML Developers. To post, mailto:xml-dev@i... Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/xml-dev/ To (un)subscribe, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message; (un)subscribe xml-dev To subscribe to the digests, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message; subscribe xml-dev-digest List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (mailto:rzepa@i...)
|
PURCHASE STYLUS STUDIO ONLINE TODAY!Purchasing Stylus Studio from our online shop is Easy, Secure and Value Priced! Download The World's Best XML IDE!Accelerate XML development with our award-winning XML IDE - Download a free trial today! Subscribe in XML format
|