xml-dev - Re: Does DTD validation work with namespaces?

[Wayne Steele <xmlmaster@hotmail.com>]

>From: James Robertson <jamesr@steptwo.com.au>
>
>I seem to have missed something here ...
>
>We are talking about namespaces and validation?
>
>The issue doesn't seem to be the text before
>the colon in the element name.
>

Sure it is. Let me give you an example:
   I have some XML Documents, using a grammar I wrote myself.
   I wrote myself a handy little DTD to validate my grammar.
   I declared a namespace ("urn:me:1") to use for my grammar, so each GI is 
globally unique.
   Some of my documents use a prefix for the namespace of "x".
   Some of my documents declare urn:me:1 as the default namespace at the top 
level, so they have no elements with prefixes.

   Now the challenge: modify my DTD so it can still validate my documents.

>Isn't the issue that namespaces allow you
>to mix information from a number of sources,
>however you see fit? Every document can have
>different elements, and yet still be considered
>OK according to well-formed and namespace rules ...
>
>How do we handle _this_ behaviour, and still
>make some use of DTDs?
>

This too is a challenge.
I can mix and match elements as I see fit.
_I_ in this case, means the DTD designer, or system architect.
I also want to forbid certain combinations of namespaces.

Can I use DTDs to help me do this?

I think I could, if DTD's had a concept of Namespaces.

-Wayne Steele





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