Re: [xml-dev] Transition from DTD to XML Schema specification

[ht@inf.ed.ac.uk (Henry S. Thompson)]

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Michael Steidl (IPTC) writes:

> What are best practices for such a sliding transition from DTD to XML 
> Schema validated documents and are there workarounds to allow the import 
> of both non-namespaced and namespaced XML instances. Our document 
> specifications are used worldwide and there is no way of defining a "day 
> X" from that on DTD based instances are abondoned and only XML Schema 
> based instances are allowed.

Do some/all/most of your users include a DOCTYPE in their instances?

If so, just edit the DTD (centrally and, if they reference the DTD
locally, the local copies) to include an attribute declaration of the
form

 xmlns CDATA #FIXED "[your NS URI here]"

Then your instances will have the namespace they need for your
validator (providing it's not unhelpful wrt external subsets).  This
reduces your problem from editing all your instances to just editing
your DTD (and all its copies) -- should be much more managable. . .

ht
- -- 
 Henry S. Thompson, HCRC Language Technology Group, University of Edinburgh
                     Half-time member of W3C Team
    2 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh EH8 9LW, SCOTLAND -- (44) 131 650-4440
            Fax: (44) 131 650-4587, e-mail: ht@inf.ed.ac.uk
                   URL: http://www.ltg.ed.ac.uk/~ht/
[mail really from me _always_ has this .sig -- mail without it is forged spam]
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