Re: [xml-dev] Re: determining ID-ness in XML

["Rob Lugt" <roblugt@elcel.com>]

Elliotte Rusty Harold wrote
>
>
> Nobody is suggesting they be mutually exclusive! Nobody is precluding
> anything! If you want your documents that contain
> xml:id/xlink:label/id/shazbot attributes to be valid, then all you
> have to do is declare them in the DTD like any other attribute. If
> you don't care about validity, you don't have to do this. It really
> is that simple. I don't know any other way to say it.

Marcus can correct me if I'm wrong, but the point that I think he is making
is this:

Let's say we have an xml document "order.xml" that is valid against the
Widget Orders DTD.  Company AAA created this file and validated it against
the DTD.  The document is then sent to Widget Market, a middle man who does
not accept xml files with DTDs, so the DOCTYPE is stripped off.  Widget
Market then matches the order with one from BBB, so they send the file on to
them.  BBB want to make sure the file is valid, so they re-attach the DTD
and validate it.

Now, the document has gone from being valid, to well-formed, to valid again.
If Widget Market wanted to be able to address portions of the file using
xml:id, then this would require a change to Widget Orders DTD.  But Widget
Standard Org only updates the DTD every 100 years, so they're out of luck.

~Rob