[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message]

Re: We need SAX features to say a parser supports XML

• To: John Cowan <jcowan@r...>
• Subject: Re: We need SAX features to say a parser supports XML
• From: Elliotte Rusty Harold <elharo@m...>
• Date: Fri, 25 Oct 2002 10:36:01 -0400
• Cc: xml-dev@l...
• In-reply-to: <200210251427.KAA19293@m...>
• References: <200210251427.KAA19293@m...>

At 10:14 AM -0400 10/25/02, John Cowan wrote:


>Read the errata page.

Oh joy. Another erratum that rewrites history because the working 
group changed its mind. Sorry. I don't accept such errata as 
normative. The spec is clear an unambiguous. There is no plausible 
argument that the original spec made a mistake. The people who wrote 
the spec knew what they were writing and why they were writing it. 
Now, retroactively, somebody's decided they were wrong, and they're 
going to fix it.

Sorry. This can't be done in an erratum. XML 1.0 says what it says. 
Parsers are designed around it. If you're going to change the BNF 
grammar, then you've invented a new language. XML 1.0 plus errata is 
no longer XML 1.0. It is provably true that

<?xml version="1.1"?><root />

is a well-formed XML 1.0 document.
-- 

+-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+
| Elliotte Rusty Harold | elharo@m... | Writer/Programmer |
+-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+
|          XML in a  Nutshell, 2nd Edition (O'Reilly, 2002)          |
|              http://www.cafeconleche.org/books/xian2/              |
|  http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0596002920/cafeaulaitA/  |
+----------------------------------+---------------------------------+
|  Read Cafe au Lait for Java News:  http://www.cafeaulait.org/      |
|  Read Cafe con Leche for XML News: http://www.cafeconleche.org/    |
+----------------------------------+---------------------------------+

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: We need SAX features to say a parser supports XML
    • From: Robin Berjon <robin.berjon@e...>
  • Re: We need SAX features to say a parser supports XML
    • From: John Cowan <jcowan@r...>

• References:
  • Re: We need SAX features to say a parser supports XML
    • From: John Cowan <jcowan@r...>

• Prev by Date: Re: We need SAX features to say a parser supports XML
• Next by Date: Re: We need SAX features to say a parser supports XML
• Previous by thread: Re: We need SAX features to say a parser supports XML
• Next by thread: Re: We need SAX features to say a parser supports XML
• Index(es):
  • Date
  • Thread