Re: PSVI

[ht@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Henry S. Thompson)]

John Cowan <jcowan@reutershealth.com> writes:

> Henry S. Thompson wrote:
> 
> 
> > [G]iven
> > <?xml version='1.0' standalone='yes'?>
> 
> > <!DOCTYPE foo [
> > <!ATTLIST foo baz CDATA 'banana'>
> > ]>
> > <foo/>
> > some conforming processors will fill in the attribute value and some
> 
> > won't.
> 
> Not.
> 
> As Section 5.1 says:
> 
> # While [non-validating processors] are not required to check the
> # document for validity, they are required to *process* all the
> # declarations they read in the internal DTD subset [...] up
> # to the first reference to a parameter entity that they do /not/
> # read; that is to say, they must use the information in those
> # declarations to [...] supply default attribute values.
> 
> The presence of "must" means that processors that don't fill in
> the attribute value are not conforming processors.  This is
> an important point, since it is a widespread myth that non-validating
> processors may ignore the DTD altogether.

Thanks, I've made this mistake before, and should know better by now.

ht
-- 
  Henry S. Thompson, HCRC Language Technology Group, University of Edinburgh
          W3C Fellow 1999--2001, part-time member of W3C Team
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