xml-dev - Re: Making DTD validation work with namespaces

[james anderson <james.anderson@mecomnet.de>]

If one were expect a processor to implement this mechanism, then one
could just as well expect a processor to implement the mechanism which
is already implied by the namespace spec. Namely, to observe attribute
default bindings for namespace attributes when reading the dtd. If
specified in the internal subset for the root element of a dtd fragment
which is described externally, the encoding is not significantly more
complex then the implicit qualification proposed here. It also requires
just implementing things which are already described...

"Paul W. Abrahams" wrote:
> 
> Here's a suggestion as to how namespaces might be made to work with DTDs while
> doing minimal violence either to the XML spec or the namespace spec.
> 
> The usual method of incorporating a DTD into a document's "doctypedecl" is first
> to declare a parameter entity and then to summon it with a parameter-entity
> reference.  The syntax of the PEDecl that declares the entity is:
> 
>      PEDecl ::= `<!ENTITY ' S "%" Name S EntityDef S? '>'
> 
> Now suppose we adopt the convention that a Name ending in a colon designates
> both a DTD and a namespace prefix.  The EntityDef says where the DTD is to be
> found; we reinterpret the retrieval process to prefix each element name within
> the DTD with the Name.   Since the XML spec says that the EntityDef is used to
> retrieve the entity but does not say precisely what that retrieval process is,
> we're still consistent with XML 1.0.
>