RE: Why Doesn't IE5 use the DTD to Validate?

HI Chris,

<YourComment>
> is well-formed but not valid.  This document also is well-formed but not
> valid:
>
> <!DOCTYPE doc [
> <!ATTLIST doc a CDATA "default">
> ]>
> <doc>foo</doc>

Yes. You can add entities and you can default attributes; you can do
that in the internal subset or the external subset, but my understanding
is that as soon as you declare an element, you are asserting that the
document is supposed to be valid.

> Neither contains an assertion that is valid.  Systems that assume that a
> document is meant to be valid merely because it contains a DOCTYPE
> declaration are broken; there's nothing in the XML spec that licenses
> such an assumption.

I agree. Some systems do give that impression, true[1], but having read
the spec some more times and talked to the authors, my understanding is
that element declarations are indeed that switch.
<YourComment>

<Reply>
Here is the solution Chris W3C should include the authors with each
specification to provide additionnal tacit knowledge not contained in the
specs. :-))).

However, your point about considering the inclusion of the ELEMENT in the
DTD as a switch indicating validation is a good idea. Why not write and
publish a note so that now, implementers could get access to this "tacit"
knowledge and then transform it into "explicit" knowledge. Thanks in advance
if you do that, it will be more profitable than saying that Microsoft is
wrong. At least it will prevent us to do the same mistake and W3C will learn
the difference between "tacit" and "explicit" knowledge.
</Reply>

Regards
Didier PH Martin
mailto:martind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.netfolder.com


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