Re: [xml-dev] Element equivalence under XML Namespaces

["bryan rasmussen" <rasmussen.bryan@gmail.com>]

> 2. XML or xml is reserved. I don't think xmlns is defined as a
> > namespace declaration anywhere but it seems sort of implied.
>
> Any casing of "xml" being reserved isn't necessarily namespaces
> related, it also allows the introduction of future features with
> specific semantics (as happened with the belated xml:id).
>
Yes I know, however if you have XML like this:

<a xmlns="http://example.org/namespacesexample"/>

what is that xmlns? In the XML spec as currently written I don't think
that is understood to be clearly a namespace [maybe it is somewhere in
there, I can just remember the : is specified but no other reference
is made as to the meaning of namespaces]?  But because starting with
xml is reserved that implies that xmlns has a W3C determined meaning.
W3C has published another document that describes what the meaning of
xmlns is, the namespace spec. So I would say that in the case of
'xmlns without :' then it may not be that the XML spec knows about the
existence of namespaces in that case but it would have to know that
there must be a specification that handled that special case or it
would have to assume that the above example was not well-formed.

Actually I am finding it awkward at this point to talk about what the
XML spec knows since being a spec it obviously knows nothing. This is
more the case of what an XML parser must know at a minimum, and it
must know - even without 'understanding' namespaces that xmlns is
allowed, and because it MUST know that little bit I suppose it becomes
reasonable for it to know just as well what xmlns 'means'.

Cheers,
Bryan Rasmussen