The per-element-type namespace partition

[Andrew Layman]

There may be a misunderstanding engendered by my wording.  When I wrote that


> the following two things are not necessarily
> the same:
> 
>         <foo:a foo:href="bar">
>         <foo:a href="bar">

I was recognizing that the two names may actually have the same referent or
might have different referents, but that one cannot tell which simply by
unaided inspection of the names, in the same way that two distinct URLs
might actually refer to the same document, but one cannot generally
determine that fact by mere inspection of the two URLs.  This point is not
actually an invention of the namespaces specification, but simply a
recognition that names whose interpretation is not part of the specification
may behave that way, as URIs do.

No API can claim that the two attributes are necessarily equivalent or
conversely distinct without being sometimes flat wrong.  I do not mean this
as a criticism of the good intentions of the SAX contributors, but just a
caution that if SAX is to faithfully reflect what a document author wrote,
for all documents, it cannot add peculiar interpretation to namespaces.

-----Original Message-----
From: james anderson [mailto:James.Anderson at mecomnet.de]
Sent: Wednesday, December 22, 1999 11:45 AM
To: xml-dev at ic.ac.uk
Subject: Re: The per-element-type namespace partition


apologies, in advance, for flogging a grandfather for the crimes of his
progeny, but...

Andrew Layman wrote:

> That disclaimer aside, I recall that a major part of the motivation for
the
> distinction was the desire to allow for "global attributes," where a
> qualified attribute such as "foo:href" could have a definition and meaning
> independent of the element within which it appeared, and at the same time
> continue the current practice fostered by DTDs in which an unqualified
> attribute may have a definition and meaning local to the enclosing
element.

from which it would appear to be that the real issue is that, it was held to
be imperative that the following be XML-1.0+namespaces valid:

>         <foo:a foo:href="bar" href="bar" xmlns="x" xmlns:foo="x">

gee, there's no reason to object to that. on the other hand, when working to
implement this,  if a spec which can only be characterized as

> better or for worse, [saying] that the following two things are not
necessarily
> the same:
> 
>         <foo:a foo:href="bar">
>         <foo:a href="bar">

and leaves it up to each implementation - at point SAX2 - to say what they
are, the spec is not serving its purpose. hermeneutics aside. that something
is, finally, in a position to resolve this quandry is, welcome.


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