xml-dev - RE: SAX2 Namespace Support

[Leigh Dodds <ldodds@ingenta.com>]

> My biggest problem with this (and its Java equivalent) is figuring out 
> how to handle equality: are two QNames with the same URI part and same 
> local part equal?  What if the prefix is different?

I take it that its the latter question which is the thorny one:

If the URI and the local part are the same, then two QNames are 
identical.

If the prefix is different (but the URI is the same) then they 
should still be equal. The prefix is a means to point to a URI.
The URIs are identical, therefore the QNames should be the 
same. The prefix is there to cope with the fact that a URI can 
contain characters illegal in a Name, and nothing more - its 
a pointer. 

If I'm wrong, and they're not equal in the latter case, then 
its highly counter-intuitive. And it also devalues the idea 
of having URIs in the first place. 

If the prefix has meaning, then let it denote the namespace completely, 
without reference to a URI. If its a pointer then it should be 
dereferenced and have no intrinsic value.

What would be the value in doing the following?:

<Person xmlns:foo="http://www.myorg.com"
   xmlns:bar="http://www.myorg.com">
	<foo:email>me@myorg.com</foo:email>
	<bar:name>me</bar:name>
</Person> 

In terms of SAX2, reporting the prefix is obviously useful for 
round-trip processing.

L.



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