Re: Namespaces Best Practice

[Jonathan Borden <jborden@mediaone.net>]

Simon,


> On 26 Aug 2001 14:55:38 -0400, Jonathan Borden wrote:
> > 2) Use of XML Namespaces is optional in XML document and application
> > design - however - it is a best practice to either use or not use XML
> > namespaces in a single document format/application. That is, if XML
> > Namespaces are to be used, it is a best practice to qualify all
elements.
>
> Fundamentally I agree with this, but there's still one thing troubling
> me: XSLT.
>
> XSLT processors only cares about the XSLT namespace and a few other
> bits; everything else is more or less a passive recipient of
> information.  Mixing unqualified names with XSLT is a remarkably common
> practice, and needs to be if XSLT is going to be used to generate
> documents which don't themselves use namespaces.

Best practices are rules which may be broken when there is a good reason
(such as you describe).

>
> Does there need to be an "XSLT exception" or is there some general way
> of describing this that might make sense within the context of (2)?
>

A couple more best practices come to mind:

3) It is a best practice to use the minimum number of namespaces as is
reasonably possible within a given XML document/application.

4) A guideline for the assumption of how elements qualified by different
namespaces relate is to assume that elements within the same namespace
"understand" eachother, but elements _generally_ within different namespaces
treat eachother as somehow "opaque".

That said, XSLT can be said to treat unqualified elements as "in" a sort of
global namespace.


Jonathan