Re: what are node set fragments and why are they ruining my

Kay Michael wrote:
> 
> Bizarre perhaps, but not a bug. sxf:node-set is documented to work this way.
> As well as putting the dummy root node in as a parent for the user-written
> nodes, it also wraps a dummy element around them, to make the fragment a
> well-formed document. This was basically done for code reuse reasons, and
> because at the time it was written the implementation of result tree
> fragments was not exposed to the application.
> 
> This will change in the next version to work the same as xt.

ah - sorry I suggested it's a bug. (no I didn't read the documentation.)

> I'm hitting a few other problems in the area of output XML not needing to be
> a well-formed document, e.g. when calling a DocumentHandler to process the
> output, or when chaining it into another stylesheet. (The contract with a
> SAX DocumentHandler of course says that the sequence of events will always
> be well-formed). It's an area where the spec seems a bit vague, e.g. it
> seems perfectly possible to output
> 
> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
> <element1/>
> <element2/>
> 
> which is neither a well-formed document nor a well-formed external entity.

an external parsed entity (http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml#NT-extParsedEnt)
may begin with a text declaration, which is like an xml declaration
except that it can't include a standalone document declaration. so your
example would be a well-formed external entity if you left the
standalone document declaration out. I think the spec -

"The xml output method should output an XML declaration unless the
omit-xml-declaration attribute has the value yes. The XML declaration
should include both version information and an encoding declaration. If
the standalone attribute is specified, it should include a standalone
document declaration with the same value as the value as the value of
the standalone attribute. Otherwise, it should not include a standalone
document declaration; this ensures that it is both a XML declaration
(allowed at the beginning of a document entity) and a text declaration
(allowed at the beginning of an external general parsed entity)." [16.1]

- is _trying_ to say that you should leave it out when the output can't
be a document - though it's _actually_ saying you should leave it out
when the xsl:output element has no standalone attribute. Since that
contradicts the spec's own statement that the output should be either a
well-formed document or a well-formed external entity, presumably you're
entitled to pick the more sensible of the contradictory statements.

-- 

cheers

phil

"that monotonous state of the soul halfway between fulfillment
and futility which comes with life in the country" --- Musil


 XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list