[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Namespace Evolution Proposal
A very (very!) rough draft of a specification that allows us to reliably interpret variants of a particular document type. I wrote this a few months ago but never got time to clean it up and solicit comments. Now seems like a good time even if I can't clean it up right now. ---- It is often the case that two namespaces will be very similar but not quite identical. In this case "similar" means that the semantics and structures associated with names might be "close enough" for all processing associated with one namespace to also apply to the other. The namespaces specification does not address this issue. This specification describes a convention for stating that namespaces are similar and formally stating the nature of the similarlity. The scope of these declarations is the directly containing element and all of that element's children which follow the declaring element. The <xmlns:evolution href=""> element states that the attributes on the The <xmlns:same-name newURI="" newName="" oldURI="" oldName=""> states that the given name in the namespace "new" can be interpreted as identical to the name oldName in the namespace oldURI. So HTML 4.0 strict's A element type would be the same-name as HTML 4.0 loose's A element type. The <xmlns:subset newURI="" oldURI="" exceptions=""> element states that any name in the namespace "new" can be directly interpreted as a name in the namespace "old" except for the names specified in the exceptions attribute. So HTML 4.0 would be identical to HTML 3.0, except for the APPLET tag and some other similar stuff. The <xmlns:suppress newURI="" oldURI="" names=""> element states that elements and attributes with the listed names in the new namespace should be ignored by applications understanding only the old namespace. It should be as if they did not exist. For instance, HTML BGCOLOR attribute and BGSOUND element. The <xmlns:suppress-unknown-content newURI="" oldURI="" names=""> element states that sub-elements of the element that are not known by the application to be part of oldURI should be surpressed. For instance, HTML APPLET or OBJECT. The <xmlns:transform newURI="" newName="" oldURI="" oldName=""> <xmlns:transformation lang="" uri=""/> <xmlns:transformation lang="" uri=""/> </xml:transform> element states that the name newName in namespace newURI can be interpreted as equivalent to the name oldName in the namespace oldURI after the application of any of the given transformations. The lang attribute is a URI that identifies the transformation language. The lang attribute is optional if the transformation is defined in prose (for instance an "ignore elements that start with _" rule might be globally understood). Recommended transformation languages include XSLT, STTS, DSSSL, XML architectural forms (with or without a meta-dtd) and a Javascript/DOM program). Using the built-in transformational elements is superior to referring to an external transformation because they are guaranteed to be universally implemented. Using an external transformation in a simple, standardized external language is better than using an external transformation in a complex, standardized external language but it increases the liklihood of implementation. Using an external transformation in a standardized language is better than using one in an unstandardized language. The other option is provided only because some applications may require the extra flexibility of pointing (e.g.) to Java classes or an Active-X program. Paul Prescod 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/ and on CD-ROM/ISBN 981-02-3594-1 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...)
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