In a application where a client is required to send
some information to a server in the form of an XML document which must conform
to a specific DTD, should the client include a direct reference the DTD
in the form of a DOCTYPE statement.
Alternatively, should the server expect a basic
(well-formed) xml document with no explicit reference to the DTD, thereby
leaving the server to explicitly validate the document against what it knows to
be the correct DTD.
My specific situation is that I currently have a
client which submits a 'full' xml document (including DOCTYPE referencing the
DTD) to a server. My server just parses and validates the document, and if it
parses ok, assumes it is what it is expecting. However, it is of course possible
that a completely different type of xml document is submitted from elsewhere,
which in itself is valid against the DTD it specifies, but has nothing to do
with what my server wants.
