Fw: Namespaces

[James Clark]

Oren Ben-Kiki wrote:

> <x xmlns:n1="http://www.w3.org"
>      xmlns="http://www.w3.org" >
>     <good a="1"     b="2" />
>     <good a="1"     n1:a="2" />
>   </x>
> 
> would have the equivalent (extended) Clark encoding
> (http://www.jclark.com/xml/xmlns.htm)
> 
> <{http://www.w3.org}x xmlns:n1="http://www.w3.org"
>                       xmlns="http://www.w3.org" >
>     <{http://www.w3.org}good {{http://wwww.w3.org}good}a="1"
>                              {{http://wwww.w3.org}good}b="2" />
>     <{http://www.w3.org}good {{http://wwww.w3.org}good}a="1"
>                              {http://www.w3.org}a="2" >
>   </{http://www.w3.org}x>

It would have the (non-extended) Clark encoding of:

<{http://www.w3.org}x>
    <{http://www.w3.org}good a="1" b="2" />
    <{http://www.w3.org}good a="1" {http://www.w3.org}a="2" />
  </{http://www.w3.org}x>

Putting {{http://wwww.w3.org}good} in front of the unprefixed attribute
names needlessly confuses things.  When I write in XML

  <good a="1"/>

what is the relationship between the attribute name "a" and the element
type name "good"? It's hard to describe but they're clearly not
unrelated: roughly speaking knowing what the attribute name "a" means
depends on knowing what the element type name "good" means.  But we
don't need to fight this one out: whatever this relationship is, when I
write

<{http://www.w3.org}good a="1"/>

this relationship is exactly the same relationship as holds between the
attribute name "a" and the element type name "{http://www.w3.org}good". 
XML namespaces aren't changing anything here.  That's why

<{http://www.w3.org}good a="1"/>

not

<{http://www.w3.org}good {{http://www.w3.org}good}a="1"/>

is the right way to describe what's going on.

James



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