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Re: [xml-dev] Re: determining ID-ness in XML
At 5:02 PM +0000 11/7/01, Rob Lugt wrote:
>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.
Of course! They're out of luck. The document isn't valid. There is
nothing new here, nor should we make any effort to solve this
problem. If these folks have chosen to pass around invalid documents
and not update their DTDs to reflect their actual practice, that's
their business, not ours.
This problem is not at all unique to xml:id, xlink:label, or anything
else. If you add attributes to your document that are not declared in
the DTD it won't be valid. This is true of xml:lang, xml:space,
xml:base, xlink:label, xlink:href, xmlns, xmnls:rdf, id, href, and
every other attribute that's ever been used in XML. Why would we even
consider changing this now? This is not on the table. We are not
considering changing the definition of validity. Furthermore it is
*not* a requirement that whatever solution we come up with for
providing link targets in documents where a DTD is not available or
is not read must keep new documents that use this mechanism valid
without updating their DTDs.
Let me phrase the question this way: regarding validity and validity
only, not the semantics of the attribute, is there any objection to
an xml:id attribute that is not equally true of xml:base? So far I
can't see one.
--
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| Elliotte Rusty Harold | elharo@metalab.unc.edu | Writer/Programmer |
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