Re: [xml-dev] DTD encoding

["G. Ken Holman" <gkholman@CraneSoftwrights.com>]

At 2009-03-09 18:53 +0100, Vincent De Groote wrote:
>An XML document has its encoding specified in the prolog.

Yes, by way of an XML declaration.

>But what is the encoding of the dtd file ?

A DTD file can have its own XML declaration.

>When I look at dtd found on internet (for example docbook dtds), I 
>can never find the encoding specified in the document itself.

Then they must be using the system default, which for most processors 
is UTF-8 or UTF-16.

>Does the DTD file 'inherits' its encoding from the enclosing xml document ?

No, each entity has its own responsibility for declaring the 
character set for that resource:

T:\ftemp>type abc.dtd
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="US-ASCII"?>
<!ELEMENT doc EMPTY>

T:\ftemp>type abc.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE doc SYSTEM "abc.dtd">
<doc/>

T:\ftemp>xml abc.xml
No validation errors.

T:\ftemp>

I hope this helps.

. . . . . . . .  Ken

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