xml-dev - Re: namespace prefixes within attribute values

["Eve L. Maler" <elm@east.sun.com>]

At 11:53 AM 3/9/00 -0500, Simon St.Laurent wrote:
>Both the XML Schemas drafts and the XLink drafts use namespace prefixes
>within attribute values.  As far as I can tell, this usage isn't sanctioned
>by the Namespaces in XML Recommendation.

As Richard Tobin has already noted, the namespace declaration information 
will typically be made available; the higher-level application would only 
be responsible for catching/validating the usage of a prefix in the 
attribute value.  I'm comfortable with that, as far as it goes.  I have a 
different problem.

Back in February, I wrote up a minority opinion on QName usage in XLink 
attribute values (located at 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-xml-linking-comments/2000JanMar/0041 
.html).  This writeup didn't quite describe my biggest concern, but I 
finally figured out a way to explain it:

The Namespaces specification 
(http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml-names/#sec-intro) defines an XML namespace as 
a "collection of names ... which are used in documents as element types and 
attribute names."  I can see using QNames attribute values when you're 
manipulating element types and attribute names, as is done in XML Schema 
and XSLT.  However, in XLink, QNames are used -- in the true Namespaces 
specification sense -- for values that have nothing to do with element 
types and attribute names.

A lot of people are hoping that one day they'll be able to point to some 
kind of document (compound or not...whatever) that will serve as the 
definitive source for information about a namespace.  I fear that any 
future work to figure this out will be hampered by legacy cases of names 
that don't fall into the sanctioned categories.  If I've defined 
show="myco:popupFor10Seconds" to have meaning in my XLink application, and 
I want to define the name "popupFor10Seconds" in my namespace definition 
document, have I now precluded the possibility of having a 
<popupFor10Seconds>? an <x myco:popupFor10Seconds="..." />?

         Eve
--
Eve Maler            Sun Microsystems
elm @ east.sun.com    +1 781 442 3190

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