xml-dev - Why the Infoset?

["Paul W. Abrahams" <abrahams@valinet.com>]

What is the purpose of the XML Infoset?  Is it mainly
intended to enlighten implementors about what the abstract
structure of an XML document is, or does it have some other
less obvious uses?   Are there other XML specs that refer to
it in normative contexts, i.e., that would be ill-defined
without the Infoset?   The XPath spec refers to it in a
non-normative context but that doesn't count.

Paul Abrahams