xml-dev - Namespace prefixes in attribute declarations

[Ronald Bourret <rbourret@ito.tu-darmstadt.de>]

According to the namespace spec, the following is legal:

<!ATTLIST a:my_element
         a:my_attribute CDATA #IMPLIED>

What does it mean and why is the prefix legal for the attribute?  DTDs have 
no way to declare global attributes and local attributes are, by 
definition, unprefixed.  Thus, it seems this declares  a local attribute 
that can only be used as a global attribute:

<!-- a:my_attribute is global -->
<a:my_element a:my_attribute/>

The only thing I can think of is so global attributes can be declared in 
and validated against XML 1.0 DTDs by declaring them on each element.

-- Ron Bourret


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