Re: [Sax-devel] Showstopper issue with new Attribute text

[David Megginson <dmeggin@attglobal.net>]

Elliotte Rusty Harold wrote:

> The local name property of the attribute information item for an xmlns 
> attribute is xmlns. The prefix property for the attribute information 
> corresponding to an xmlns attribute has no value. Therefore, when SAX 
> reports these I maintain that the local name should be xmlns, not the 
> empty string. The qualified name should also be xmlns. This is still a 
> showstopper issue, even allowing xmlns attributes into the 
> http://www.w3.org/2000/xmlns/ namespace.

OK, people, what do we do here?  Here are my opinions:

1. Anyone who writes an application that actually cares about the Namespace 
assigned to xmlns attributes is f#@$%@#$ed in the head and deserves whatever 
happens.

2. That said, we still have a responsibility to try to do the right thing. 
If we get it wrong, though, it doesn't matter all that much (see #1).

So, bearing all that in mind, what should we report for the following 
Namespace declaration?

   <foo xmlns="http://www.example.org/ns#"/>

a) an attribute with no Namespace URI and the local name "xmlns";

b) an attribute with the Namespace URI "http://www.w3.org/2000/xmlns/"; and 
no local name; or

c) an attribute with the Namespace URI "http://www.w3.org/2000/xmlns/"; and 
the local name "xmlns".

Note that none of these is a clean solution, probably because Namespaces 1.1 
is a bit broken.  Then again, I doubt it matters much.  If no one presents a 
convincing argument, I'll just pick one of the three at random.


Apathetically yours,


David