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Global attributes (was Mapping XHTML to XLink via Architectural Forms)

• From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>
• To: Jonathan Borden <jborden@m...>,XML-Dev Mailing list <xml-dev@x...>
• Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 14:34:22 -0400

At 02:07 PM 10/27/00 -0400, Jonathan Borden wrote:
>We agree. The way I see it, namespaces are the easiest way to prevent this
>from happening, that is for new applications "x:style" is a better option
>than "style" (btw: by 'global attribute' do you mean a non namespace
>prefixed attribute?)

No, they're quite definitely prefixed.

I'm referring to the discussion in Namespaces in XML, Section A.2:
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml-names/#ns-breakdown

Specifically:
>The Global Attribute Partition 
>     This partition contains the names of all attributes which are 
>defined, in this namespace, to be global. The only required 
>characteristic of a global attribute is that its name be unique in 
>the global attribute partition. This specification makes no assertions 
>as to the proper usage of such attributes. The combination of the 
>namespace name and the attribute name uniquely identifies the 
>global attribute. 
>[...]
>In XML documents conforming to this specification, the names of all 
>qualified (prefixed) attributes are assigned to the global attribute 
>partition, and the names of all unqualified attributes are assigned 
>to the appropriate per-element-type partition.

XLink picks up on this in Section 4:
http://www.w3.org/TR/xlink/#att-method

Specifically:
>XLink's namespace provides global attributes for use on elements 
>that are in any arbitrary namespace. The global attributes are 
>type, href, role, arcrole, title, show, actuate, label, from, and 
>to. Document creators use the XLink global attributes to make the 
>elements in their own namespace, or even in a namespace they do 
>not control, recognizable as XLink elements. The type attribute 
>indicates the XLink element type (simple, extended, locator, arc, 
>resource, or title); the element type dictates the XLink-imposed 
>constraints that such an element must follow and the behavior of 
>XLink applications on encountering the element.
>[...]
>Using global attributes always requires the use of namespace 
>prefixes on the individual attributes and the use of the type 
>attribute on the element.

Damnit.  I knew I shouldn't get involved in another discussion of
namespaces.  My head is spinning again.

Simon St.Laurent
XML Elements of Style / XML: A Primer, 2nd Ed.
XHTML: Migrating Toward XML
http://www.simonstl.com - XML essays and books

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