Re: [xml-dev] Alternative "character entity" proposal

[Richard Tobin <richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>]

>But surely before we can consider syntaxes for defining entities you
>need to get XML Core Group to reconsider making an non-dtd defined
>entity ref a validity rather than WF error.

By the way, if you really want to do this, you can technically make
undefined entities not be well-formedness errors by using a trivial
DTD that refers to a parameter entity, e.g.

 <!DOCTYPE foo [
 <!ENTITY % dummy "<!-- a comment -->">
 %dummy;
 ]>
 <foo>this document is &well-formed;</foo>

Undefined entity references are only well-formedness errors when a
minimal parser can be sure that there is no unread declaration; since
minimal parsers do not have to process parameter entities, they cannot
be relied on to know that there is not a declaration in the parameter
entity.

Of course this only gives you a warm fuzzy feeling; it does not
guarantee that current parsers won't reject the document.

-- Richard