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Re: QNames in attribute values

• To: xml-dev@l...
• Subject: Re: QNames in attribute values
• From: Ronald Bourret <rpbourret@r...>
• Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 23:26:34 -0800
• References: <NEBBLOGPODFIFNJHLHBGGEBNEOAA.elenz@x...>

Evan Lenz wrote:

> I completely disagree. As Mike Kay pointed out, there's no way for an XML
> processor to tell whether QNames are used in values. Consequently, all scope
> information, i.e. exactly where every xmlns declaration is and what prefix
> it uses, must always be passed to the application, regardless of whether
> it's needed or not.

But that's hardly a lot of information, is it?

> It's hard to believe that this was ever the intent of
> the XML Names recommendation.

Agreed.

> This practice blurs the distinction between
> the XML processor and the XML application,

Maybe. I think you can make a reasonable argument either way.

> If each layer had its own
> namespace declaration mechanism (one for element/attribute names, and one
> for application-specific content), then it would always be possible to throw
> away scope information as purely lexical detail.

Yes, but the end result would be that many applications would end up
reinventing xmlns attributes.

> I think there are still many people in the XML world (including members of
> W3C working groups) who happily use namespaces and who are oblivious to the
> fact that other specs are forcing [in-scope namespaces] on XML applications
> everywhere. These people are in for a harsh wake-up call.

How are they being "forced" on applications? DOM doesn't do this (which
I think is a mistake), and it's trivial to ignore this information in
SAX if your application doesn't need them.

Put another way, I don't care about entity usage. Should I also complain
that entities are being forced on me? (As it is, I had to write a bunch
of normalization code because DOM level 1 normalization was inadequate.
I probably had better things to do with my time, but I also figure
that's the price I pay for using generic processors. It's stil a lot
easier than writing a parser...)

-- Ron

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