About the xmlns:xsl attribute

Hi all

I'm new to XML, and I have a question that will certainly seem obvious
for the people of this list, but I couldn't find any clear enough
explanation for it.

My problem concerns the xsl:stylesheet declaration on top of XSL
documents, and more precisely the xmlns:xsl attribute..

I wrote a simple XML document and 2 XSL stylesheets, which are slightly
different :
- the first one containing : <xsl:stylesheet
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
- the second one containing : <xsl:stylesheet
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-xsl"
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40" result-ns="">
This is the only difference between the two stylesheets.

The aim is to get a HTML document as the result of the transformation.
To view it, I use 3 different methods :
- loading directly the XML document in IE5
- using Cocoon to process the document, and then sending the resulting
HTML document to the browser
- using Excelon Stylus

When I make the XML document refer to the first stylesheet, IE5 doesn't
process it correctly, so I get a weird display. But, if I make it refer
to the second stylesheet, it properly displays, so I get what I wanted.

With Cocoon or Excelon Stylus, it's the opposite : it's well processed
with the second stylesheet, but not with the first.

Could anyone explain to me the meaning and the different possible values
of the xmlns:xls attribute ? Is it related to the Microsoft XSL
conformance debate ? Is one of the values deprecated ? According to
Stylus error message, the values of the stylesheets refer to different
versions of XSL specification. What is the difference between these
versions ? Also, is there a syntax I can use that would make my document
display properly using any of the viewing methods I described ?

I visited many web sites related to XML, but I couldn't manage to find
the answer.

Thanks a lot for helping me,

Herve Blondeau


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