Re: [xml-dev] Ten Years Later - XML 1.0 Fifth Edition?

["Mukul Gandhi" <gandhi.mukul@gmail.com>]

On Feb 16, 2008 2:20 PM, Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com> wrote:
>I have always dreamed that there would be a
> day when programming languages were able to use symbols like the
> multiplication and division signs with their intended meanings, rather than
> using ASCII approximations. Treating such symbols as names seems to rule
> this out for ever. Or if you decide that they are needed in names, then you
> should allow ASCII punctuation characters such as "+" and "*" in names too,
> with a suitable escape convention.

I think, we should not force in the spec, that arithmetic symbols like
+, * etc are disallowed in XML names. For e.g., somebody might want to
write a XML like,

<+>
  <add>
    <!-- some more markup -->
  </add>
</+>

i.e., for convenience, I might like to use +, -, * etc as part of XML names.

Certainly, some special characters being part of XML names, should be
written with escape sequences.

One more point I wish to add ... Sometimes, I thought allowing 1st
character as numeric in XML names is good (which is currently
prohibited). Once, I needed to convert the directory structure in
filesystem to a corresponding XML hierarchy. Some of the folder names
began with [0-9]. Then it was a bit of inconvenience.

We should surely debate the cost and benefits of this.


-- 
Regards,
Mukul Gandhi