xml-dev - Re: SAX2: Interning names in namespaces

[terje@in-progress.com (Terje Norderhaug)]

At 11:31 AM 2/5/00, Terje Norderhaug wrote:
>At 10:58 AM 2/5/00, Tim Bray wrote:
>>At 10:28 AM 2/5/00 -0800, Terje Norderhaug wrote:
>>>My proposal is NOT based on storing a combined namespace-name pair in a
>>>single string. Instead, the string only consists of the local name.
>>>
>>>Given that each local name is internalized in its namespace, it becomes
>>>possible to find the namespace of a local name without encoding the
>>>namespace as part of the string.
>>
>>Wow.  For a second I thought "what a brilliant idea, why didn't anyone
>>think of it before".  And maybe it is.
>>
>>Hm... is it a problem that you
>>can have an element type and an attribute name in the same namespace,
>>but they're really different names?
>>
>>E.g. <b:foo b:foo="32" />
>>
>>the two b:foo's are really different things. -Tim
>
>Are element names and attribute names really different things? I'd say
>that's a choice. [...] It's the
>elements and attributes that are different things.

Even whether elements and attributes are conceptually different things is a
question about perspective. Given that some may encode the same information
either as an attribute value or element content, the name may represent the
same information whether it is for an element or attribute. So attribute
names and element names might not be that different things after all.

My proposal doesn't depend on whether equal element and attribute names in
the same namespace are considered the same or different though. However, it
will affect an implementation. If they are considered different, a parser
would need to maintain different areas in a namespace for attribute names
vs element names, and separate methods for interning names depending on
whether they are for an attribute or element.

I propose that equal attribute and element names in the same namespace
should be considered the same and thus be identical.

-- Terje <terje@in-progress.com> | Media Design in*Progress

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