Namespaces and Validating XML Parsers Question

[Andrew Layman]

The namespaces specification does not provide any particular means to
associate a namespace with any defining or collateral documents (e.g.
schemas).  It only provides a means to map qualified name prefixes to URIs,
thereby allowing names to be unique.

The specification leaves it up to other facilities to actually associate
those unique names with related documents.  One such facility is the XML
Schemas specification, which contains a mechanism by which an author can
associate a schema with a namespace. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Bruce D. Nilo [mailto:bruce at nilo.com]
Sent: Thursday, December 30, 1999 7:00 PM
To: xml-dev at ic.ac.uk
Subject: Namespaces and Validating XML Parsers Question


Apologies if this is a well understood question. I am recently slogging
through the XML specs and tools and have not really found anything
that sheds light on this question. I hope the answer is a simple one.

I believe I understand the rationale and syntax of namespaces for XML
application instances. However I can find nowhere any explanation
as to how a validating parser knows how to associate an element or
attribute that is in a specific namespace with the elements and
attributes of either an external or internal DTD reference. Am I
missing something here, or is the specification punting entirely on
the issue? It seems to me that either the application instance must
associate a namespace declaration with a specific DTD or the DTD
itself must declare its name. If this is not the case the XML parser
has a difficult job determining how to interpret the names in a namespace
with those of a number of referenced DTDs which have name collisions.

- Bruce




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