[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Question About Namespaces and DTDs
In Michael Kay's book "XSLT Programmer's Reference" (2000 Wrox Press), page 25, he writes " . . . serious use of Namespaces is virtually incompatible with serious use of Document Type Definitions . . . " In Simon St. Laurent's book "XML Elements of Style" (2000 McGraw-Hill), he begins Chapter 24, page 196 with "Although the Namespaces in XML 1.0 recommendation grew out of work that began while XML 1.0 was still in development, the two recommendations don't fit together very smoothly. The critical benefits of namespaces -- unique identifiers referenced by variable prefixes -- are ignored by XML 1.0 parsers, and that can in fact break validating parsers. At the same time, however, the Namespaces in XML recommendation references the validation process as necessary for certain methods of applying namespace declarations. Sorting this out can be complex, and no complete solution has yet appeared -- or is even on the horizon." St. Laurent then provides several pages of explanation. I feel certain this issue has been discussed before on this list; I simply was not on the list to read it. I would be very grateful if someone could point me to past discussions in the list archive or, even better, a paper that more fully describes the conflict. Based on what St. Laurent wrote, it seems to me, at first blush, that this could be solved by requiring unique namespaces prefixes. Am I missing something? I realize the W3C is not going down this path. However, I'm wondering . . . if I were trying to build a global architecture for a variety of documents that exist within the same industry, wanting each of those document types to exist in a different namespace (within the industry architecture) and be able to mix using namespaces, could I not simply require all applications conforming to that particular industry standard to use unique prefixes. A further thought . . . to be manageable, it seems to me that this would require a registry of prefixes for the particular industry. Assuming a registry were possible, would namespaces and DTDs mix? My apologies if this is a simple question. I'm trying to get my head around it and would appreciate any pointers to resources that will provide clarification. Thanks, Todd
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