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Namespace vs Prefix in error message: friendly versus correct?

• To: xml-dev@l...
• Subject: Namespace vs Prefix in error message: friendly versus correct?
• From: Uche Ogbuji <uche.ogbuji@f...>
• Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2003 10:46:05 -0600
• Sender: Uche Ogbuji <uche.ogbuji@f...>

Jeff Lowery:

> c) Batik Squiggle 1.5b noted that "the attribute xlink:href of the element
> <image> is required", which is kind of a curious error since 1) xlink is a
> prefix, not a namespace; 2) the namespace declaration itself was invalid,
> yet didn't cause an error (in any of the programs)

This brought up a side thought for me.  When I write error messages in 4Suite 
(and all other software), I prefer to say something such as:

"Element (http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform, when) cannot appear here"

Several of the other core developers have argued for

"Element xsl:when cannot appear here"

Arguing that it's more user friendly.  I concede this point, but I think the 
fact that it gives false prominence to the prefix and could thus be misleading 
is more important than the fact that URIs are hard to read.

We did settle on a compromise:

"Element xsl:when, in namespace http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform, cannot 
appear here"

but no one has had the time to go back and retrofit all the error messages, 
and I find it a tad clumsy.

I've actually thought that I should switch from Python tuple notation to 
Clark's notation:

"Element {http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform}when cannot appear here"

Anyway, I wanted to get the perspective of othr XML-DEVvers on this trade-off.



-- 
Uche Ogbuji                                    Fourthought, Inc.
http://uche.ogbuji.net    http://4Suite.org    http://fourthought.com
Gems From the [Python/XML] Archives - http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2003/04/09/py-xm
l.html
Introducing N-Triples - http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-thi
nk17/index.html
Use internal references in XML vocabularies - http://www-106.ibm.com/developerw
orks/xml/library/x-tipvocab.html
EXSLT by example - http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/x-exslt.html
The worry about program wizards - http://www.adtmag.com/article.asp?id=7238
Use rdf:about and rdf:ID effectively in RDF/XML - http://www-106.ibm.com/develo
perworks/xml/library/x-tiprdfai.html

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