what is a namespace anyway? [Re: Another errata?]

[james anderson]

with due respect, there is something which is rather unclear here. does
anybody really understand this stuff?

this from REC-xml-names-19990114, appendix A "the internal structure of
namespaces", section a.2 "xml namespace partitions"

The Per-Element-Type Partitions 
       Each type in the All Element Types Partition has an associated
namespace in which appear the
       names of the unqualified attributes that are provided for that element.
This is a traditional namespace
       because the appearance of duplicate attribute names on an element is
forbidden by XML 1.0. The
       combination of the attribute name with the element's type and namespace
name uniquely identifies
       each unqualified attribute. 

yet, Tim Bray wrote:
> 
> At 04:50 PM 1/30/99 +0100, james anderson wrote:
> >If this is true, then what is the "Per-Element-Type Partition" described at
> >great length on the appendix on the "internal structure" of xml namespaces?
> >The spec would appear to assert some form of relation between the namespace
> >which comprises an unqualified attribute name and the namespace of the element identifier.
> 
> Right, that is saying exactly that even though an unprefixed attribute
> is not *in* the namespace of its element, one can easily identify
> a conventional package of information that provides an unambiguous
> Id of what kind of attribute this is; the package includes the
> information about the type and namespace of the attached element, but
> I repeat: in the sense the spec uses  the word namespace, an unprefixed
> attribute is NOT IN ANY NAMESPACE.  That's why the following is legal:
> 
>  <!-- http://www.w3.org is bound to n1 and is the default -->
>  <x xmlns:n1="http://www.w3.org"
>     xmlns="http://www.w3.org" >
>    <good a="1"     b="2" />
>    <good a="1"     n1:a="2" />
>  </x>
>


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